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Book i-lo- 



CO]Nd:LEY'B 



HISTORY 



OF 



MASSACHUSETTS. 



Portraits and Biographies of some of tlie old Settlers, and many of her most promment 
Manufacturers, Professional and Business Men. 



SPLENDIDLY ILLUSTRATLD, 



BOSTON : 

1879. 



TO THE INHABITANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS 
tlm Jjaek is Ijc^iti^dfullu SctlitaUul 

BY THE AUTHORS. 

(Kitiseu^ of pa^isiadui$ttt!Si, 6iTfting : 

It is the custom of most nations to have a patron saint, for the pur- 
pose of protection and conciHation, and most books have some powerful 
Maecenas to introduce them to the world under favorable auspices. To 
you we dedicate this book, and claim you as our patrons. It is you who 
have developed the resources and built up the cities of this Eastern State. 
It is you who have given it its wealth, its fame, and its business. You 
have given it reputation abroad and prosperity at home. You have made 
it also famous for its hospitality, and the pilgrim and the stranger feel 
conscious, when they enter the grand State of Massachusetts, that there 
are warm hearts and friendly hands to welcome them. Massachusetts is 
still young, though in growth a Titan, and this history shall record many 
of your names as being instrumental in carving out its progressive destiny. 
There is scarcely a family in it but, in turning over the pages of this book, 
will see the name of some friend or relative who have acted well their 
parts, and shall have honorable mention in this record. And since 
Massachusetts has become worthy of a history of her citizens, through the 
enterprise of her citizens, it is good and proper that "Comley's History of 
Massachusetts " be dedicated to the citizens located in her boundar}'. 






N laying before the public a new work, designed to jjresent 
the growth and importance of the commerce and manufac- 
tures, and the developments of the agriculture and mineralogy 
of Massachusetts, it is not to be expected that a plan so entirely new, and 
so ambitious, should be executed with either the precision or the com- 
pleteness that may be attained by those who travel in a beaten path. 

That the task has been adequately performed is an assertion which it 
is left for other and less deeply interested persons to make. Yet it is not 
our purpose to offer one word of apology for faulty arrangement, or for 
imperfections the causes of which are as patent as the blemishes them- 
selves. 

The history of trade, like the history of any other of the transactions 
in human affairs, can only be intelligendy presented to the mass of readers 
by seizing upon such facts as most fully illustrate its character, and hold- 
ing up a series of pictures which constitute a congruous whole. 

All candid minds must pronounce at once upon the impossibility of 
elaborating in every detail, in a single volume, the working of the won- 
derful engine of trade which is operating continually in our midst. Such 
a result has not even been attempted, but in its place it has been sought 
to give a series of outlines presenting the most prominent features of the 
relations of Massachusetts with her tributary country, in such manner as 
to best convey an idea of the magnitude and direction of her commerce, 
and the requirements it has to supply. 

The biographical feature of the work is not new, since biography in 
some form is inseparable from the relation of any human action ; yet, in 



its treatment in the book, the history of men is interwoven with the record 
of their affairs, in the same intimate connection which they sustain in the 
daily current of commercial Hfe. Business affairs do not transact them- 
selves, therefore it seemed eminently proper that their history should be 
blended with the life struggles and triumphs of the men who are charged 
with the responsibility of their movement. 

While not deprecating honest criticism, I will yet express the hope 
that the difficulties inherent in such a task as we have undertaken will 
meet with due consideration, when the value of the work itself is being 
estimated. 



HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



In 1497, about four years and a half after Columbus first discovered 
the West India Islands, and before he visited the Continent, John and 
Sebastian Cabot sailed from England, and made the coasts of North 
America, in latitude 45 north. They proceeded northward to the 60th 
degree, and south to the 38th. But it is not certain that they landed on, 
or discovered any part of the country included in what is now Massa- 
chusetts. * Bartholomew Gosnold was, probably, the first European who 
landed on its coasts, which was in the )-ear 1602. He visited the Eliza- 
beth Islands, in Buzzard's Bay and .the Vineyard, and probably, also, the 
main land, which is within the limits of the present town of Dartmouth. 
The whole country, from Florida to Newfoundland, was then known by 
the name of Virginia ; and the part still so called was first settled by the 
English in 1585. At first, Gosnold proposed a permanent settlement on 
these islands ; but his men soon became dissatisfied with the plan, and he 
returned to England the same year. In this voyage Gosnold also dis- 
covered the southeastern parts of Cape Cod. 

In the spring of 1603, Martin Bring and William Brown, under the 
direction and by the permi.ssion of Sir Walter Raleigh, in two vessels, one 
of fifty tons, and one of twenty-six, with thirty men in the largest, and 
thirteen in the smaller, fell in with the coasts of North Virginia, in lati- 
tude 43 ; and thence, sailing south, visited Cape Cod, and passed round 
it to latitude 41, where they landed and remained several weeks, in the 
month of June, and then returned to England. 



* According to Ramusio, Cabot stated, " that, having proceeded as far north as 56° under the pole, 
and despairing of finding a passage (to India), he turned back to si'arc-/t /or i/ie same to^ardslhe 
equinoctial, always with a view oi finding a passage to Indi<i. and at last reached the country called 
Florida." This was Sebastian Cabot, and in his second voyage, 149S. And he might have entered 
some bays on the coast. 



HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

Captain George Weymouth was employed by Lord Arundel to visit 
North Virginia in 1605, who discovered the coast in latitude 41-30. And 
Henry Challons was sent out soon after to make discoveries, but was at- 
tacked by the Spaniards, and his vessel and property confiscated. After- 
wards, in 1614, Captain John Smith, whose exploits in Virginia have been 
riften celebrated, and who had been a great traveler in the extreme east- 
ern parts of Europe, sailed along the coasts of Massachusetts, and made 
more discoveries of the islands and harbors than any one had done before. 
On his return, soon after, and at his suggestion, the name of New Eng- 
land was given to this part of the country, hitherto called North Virginia, 
by the Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles I. king of Great Britain. 
There is no proof, however, that Smith entered many of the harbors in 
this vo}"age. 

Four years later Thomas Dermer was sent to the coasts of New Eng- 
lantl, by Sir Ferdinando Gorges, in a ship of two hundred tons ; and with 
him, Squanto (or Tisquantum), an Indian native of the countr)', who had 
been decoyed and carried to England by one Hunt, formerly in the em- 
])loyment of Captain Smith. It is probable, that in his second voyage, in 
16 19, Captain Dermer visited Boston and Plymouth harbors. The 
country was then thinly inhabited, it being only two or three years after 
the prevalence of a very mortal disease among the natives. 

The great design of these voyages was the acquisition of wealth and 
territory ; but it was also an object, from the first, to find a fit place for a 
colony of Englishmen, for the propagation of the gospel among the 
ignorant and debased aboriginal inhabitants. And in this benevolent 
plan, the members of the Episcopal Church were the principal, if not the 
sole, actors. After^vards, indeed, when the first permanent settlements 
were made, particularly in New England, the enterprise was projected and 
accomplished by the Puritans, dissenters from Episcopacy, on account of 
alleged corruptions and usurpations by the hierarchy and its friends, and 
of the imposition of unscriptural forms and ceremonies on the members 
of the church. 



HISTORY OF MASSACHCSETTS. 9 

The most serious objections of the Puritans and dissenters were to the 
different Orders of ministers and officers in the church, with greater or 
less powers ; to the luxury of the higher grades of the clergy ; to the 
claims set up to impose any rites and forms they should choose to pre- 
scribe, whether required by Christ and his Apostles, or not ; and to the 
alliance of the church with the civil power of the State. For these ob- 
jections, and their consequent refusal to comply with unscriptural forms 
and ceremonies, which were justly considered of merely human authority, 
the Puritans were grievously oppressed and persecuted, fined and im- 
prisoned, which led them to look for some foreign land, where they might 
live in the quiet enjoyment of their rights, as disciples of Christ, their in- 
spired master if and where they might also find a residence for their pos- 
terity, free from ecclesiastical domination and unchristian forms of wor- 
ship. They had also a strong desire to-be instrumental in diffusing a 
knowledge of the gospel among the unhappy pagans of America. This, 
in truth, was scarcel}' a secondary object with them ; nor did they after- 
wards omit any efforts to accomplish this benevolent purpose. 

The men to whom reference is now made were also distinguished for 
their regard to the interests of civil liberty. While struggling for their 
Christian privileges, and examining the foundation of religious liberty, 
they perceived the benefits of political freedom, and soon became emi- 
nent for their zeal in its support. One who was apologist for high mon- 
archical principles acknowledged " that the spark of civil liberty, during 
the reign of the Stuarts, was kept alive chiefly by those who were called 
Puritans in the church."" 

So sincere and powerful was the attachment of these men to religious 
liberty, that th:y made great sacrifices of property, and endured sufferings 



t Though less tolerant thnn the celebrated Mr. Locke, who lived at a subsequent and more en- 
lightened period, they possessed the strong love of religious truth which he manifested, when he said, 
" that he shoiild take his religion from the Bible, let it agree with what sect it might ; for it woidd be 
inquired of him at the last day, not whether he had been of the Church of England, or of Geneva, but 
whether he had sought and embraced the truth." This was the principle oi the dissenters from the 
established church in England, though they would tolerate none who differed from them. 



lO HISTORY OP MASSACHUSETTS. 

and persecutions several years for their conscientious non-conformity ; 
and many of them, particularly those who afterwardsVere the first settlers 
of Plymouth Colony, leaving their native country, removed to Holland 
in 1607, 3.nd in several following years, residing first at Amsterdam and 
afterwards at Leyden. They remained in Holland till 1620, when a por- 
tion of them embarked for America, and landing on Cape Cod in No- 
vember, soon after (December 2 2d) made a permanent settlement at 
Patuxet, since called Plymouth. The greater part of the residue emi- 
grated to Plymouth in 1624 and 1628, where, for many years, their pri- 
vations and sufferings were much more severe than they endured in Hol- 
land, or when persecuted in their native land ; and yet those were very 
great, or they would not ha\e subjected themselves to the dangers and 
distress attending a settlement in the wilderness. 

Another and much larger company of English Puritans settled at 
Salem and Charlestown in 1628 and 1629, and Boston, Watertown, Dor- 
chester, and Roxbury in 1630. These were the first settlements made in 
New England which proved to be permanent. A settlement was begun 
near the mouth of the river Kennebec, in 1606-7, but was deserted the 
following spring. And small settlements were made a few years after 
Plymouth, at Weymouth and Braintree, which were soon abandoned. 

The first settlement at Plymouth numbered one hundred and one, 
consisting of men, women and children ; but, by their great privations 
and exposure, they suffered severe sickness, and nearly one-half of the 
company died within five months after they landed. They endured simi- 
lar privations and suffering, occasionally, for several years, till they were 
able to build comfortable houses, and to cultivate the earth with profit. 
The danger from the savages was long imminent, and their fears, on this 
account, were a constant diminution of the common enjoyments of life. 
They found some mitigation for these fears, however, in the friendship of 
a powerful Sachem, not far distant from their settlement. In 1630, 
when the colony of Massachusetts Bay dates its origin, as then a large 
company arrived and settled Charlestown, Boston, and vicinity, the in- 



mS7^0RV OF MASSACHUSETTS. n 

habitants of Plymouth were estimated at three hundred. The principal 
men of the colony were William Bradford, Edward Winslow, William 
Brewster, Miles Standish, Isaac Allerton,. Thomas Prence, John Alden, 
Samuel Fuller and John Rowland, to which may be added John Carver, 
the first Governor, who died in five months after their landing, and Rob- 
ert Cushman, who was a short time in the colony, in 162 1, but who 
soon returned to England, and did not again visit America. 

William Bradford was Governor of the colony from the Spring of 1621, 
when Carver died, to 1657 (the year of his death), except two years 
when Edward Winslow was elected to that office, and one in which 
Thomas Prence was called to the chair. It appears by his letters and 
manuscripts, that he was a man ot considerable literary attainments. 
William Brewster, who sustained the office of elder in the church, and 
was the oldest of the company, had the benefit of a university education, 
and was some time in public life in England, during the reign of Eliza- 
beth. Miles Standish was of a noble family, and possessed a high and 
indomitable spirit. Samuel Fuller was a deacon of the Plymouth church 
and a physician of some eminence. He was sent for to Salem in 1629, 
in a season of great sickness ; and to Charlestown in August, 1630, to at- 
tend the sick, soon after the arrival of the large company, under Gover- 
nor Winthrop. Isaac Allerton and Stephen Hopkins "were men of good 
estates and of numerous families. They, with Brewster, Bradford, 
Winslow, Standish and Alden, and Shirley, Andrews, Hatherly, Beau- 
champ, Collier and Thomas, who still remained in England, were the 
undertakers and became responsible for the debts of the company. 
Hatherly, Thomas and Collier afterwards came over and settled in the 
colony. Without the aid and accountability of Shirley and Andrews the 
plantation might have failed for want of funds and credit. They also as- 
sisted in securing a second charter in 1629, on the discover}- of the selfish 
plans of Pierce, in whose name the first had been issued, though he was 
only an agent in procuring it. 

In July, 1620, some merchants, and other opulent gentlemen in Eng- 



12 HrSTORY OF MASSACI/rSF.TTS. 

land, were incorporated by the name of " The Council for the Affairs of 
New England or North Virginia, " and it was proposed to make a settle- 
ment within their patent and under their protecdon. But that patent 
not being definitely settled, the Leyden company resolved to go for some 
place south of New England, near Hudson river. In this, however, 
they were deceived. The captain of the Mavfimvcr carried them farther 
north, and they entered the harbor of Cape Cod. This has teen consid- 
ered a favorable circumstance, though deplored at the time, as the In- 
dians were then numerous in that part of the country, while the territor\- 
about Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay was almost depopulated by a 
recent mortal sickness. 

The first places settled, after Plymouth, were Duxbury, ]Marshfield, 
Scituate, Taunton, Barnstable, Sandwich, Eastham, Rehoboth, Bridge- 
water, Dartmouth and Swansey. 

In the Summer of 1622, a setdement was began, at a place called 
Wessaguscus, now \\'e\mouth, by some English people, under the direc- 
tion and support of Thomas Weston, an enterprising merchant of Lon- 
don. 

Another settlement was begun in ^Massachusetts, in 1625, under 
Captain Wollaston and one Morton, a lawver of suspicious character. 
There were about thirty persons in this company, and they settled on and 
near an eminence on the south side of Boston Bay, to which they gave 
the name of Mount Wollaston. The site is within the town of Quincv, 
and on the farm of the late John Adams, some time President of the 
United States. 

One Thompson, a Scotchman, who had passed a year at Piscataway 
river, setded on an island in Boston harbor, in 1624. And the follow- 
ing year Lyford and Oldham, who had been banished from Plymouth for 
disorderly conduct, joined by one Conant, made a temporary residence 
at Nantasket. 

About this time William Blaxton (or Blackstone), who had been a 
clerg}-man in England, settled on the peninsula, where the city of Boston 



///STOAT OF AnsSAC/iUSETTS. 13 

now stands. He continued at that place till the arrival of the company 
under Governor Winthn-ip, in 1630, and four or five years after, when he 
sold his possessions and removed a little south of the patent of Massa- 
chusetts. 

In 1628 an important setdenient was made at Salem, under John En- 
dicot, who was chief ot the plantation, till Governor Winthrop, with 
many others, arrived in June, 1630, and settled at Charlestown, Boston, 
and vicinity. After the death of Winthrop he was Governor of Massa- 
chusetts several years, and for one year in the lifetime of that eminent 
man. 

This company came over in pursuance of a plan of Rev. Mr. White 
and others, who had been then some time preparing for a colony in New 
England, to extend the knowledge of the gospel, and to provide an asy- 
lum for such as chose or were obliged to flee from ecclesiastical tyranny 
in England ; and it was designed also as preliminary to the removal of 
larger numbers, which took place in 1629 and 1630. The company 
which came with Endicot consisted of one hundred, and they were far 
better supplied tlian the people of Plymouth were, at their first settle- 
ment. Of this party three brothers, of the name of Sprague, 
with a few others, soon removed to the spot on which Charlestown has 
since been built. They found an Englishman living there, by the name 
ofWalford, a blacksmith. The Indians were more numerous at this 
place than in the vicinity of Salem ; but they readily consented that the 
English should reside there, and the chief was mild and friendly in his 
deportment. 

The next year (1629), three ships, with two hundred passengers, ar- 
rived at Salem, and a part of these also settled at Charlestown, one of 
whom was Thomas Graves, an eminent engineer. The population of 
these two places was estimated at three hundred, including those who ar- 
rived in 1629 ; two hundred of them were at Salem, and one hundred at 
Charlestown. There were four ministers in this company. Mr. Hig- 
ginson and Mr. Skelton continued at Salem, and were learned and pious 



14 HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

men : Mr, Smith, who was of an odd temperament, and supposed, some- 
times, to be partially insane, went first to Nantasket, and thence to Ply- 
mouth, where he officiated some years ; and Mr. Bright, who seems not 
to have gone to the extreme of non-conformity with the Puritans of that 
period, soon left the country and returned to Eingland. 

When the company with Higginson and Skelton arrived at Salem, in 
1629, there were only eleven houses, one of which was for public use. 
During that year several were erected in Salem and Charlestown, and 
preparations were made for building more the following season for the 
accommodation of those then expected to arrive. Among those who 
arrived in 1628 and 1629 were some servants of the more opulent adven- 
turers, who proposed to come over in 1630, and of Mr. Craddock, one of 
the principal undertakers, but who never came to Massachusetts. Such 
was the condition of the colony that it was thought best to release them 
fr^m servitude the next year, and most of them became worthy free- 
holders in the plantation. 

The Council for the Affairs of New England (which was incorporated in 
1620), granted to certain knights and gentlemen about Dorchester, Eng- 
land, in 1628, the territory lying between the rivers Charles and Merri- 
mac, and extending three miles south of all and any streams connected 
with the former, and three miles north of the latter ; and west to the 
southern ocean. This grant was soon after confirmed by Charles I., and 
a patent w-as issued, under the broad seal of England, giving power to 
govern the colony to be there established. Endicott, Johnson, Saltonstal, 
Humfrey, Vassall, Nowell, Pynchon and Bellingham were among the 
patentees. The next year, Winthrop, Dudley and others, at the instance 
of Rev. Mr. White, ^\•ere associated with them. Matthew Craddock was 
chosen the first Governor of the company, in England ; but as he did not 
purpose to remove to New England, Winthrop was chosen to that place, 
before the company embarked in 1630, and it was then also voted to 
transfer the powers ot government to Massachusetts, where the settlement 
was to be made. Dudley was, at the same time, chosen Deputy Governor ; 



HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. ,^ 

and a board of assistants, viz., Endicott, Saltonstal, Humfrey,' Johnson 
Pynchon, Nowell, Coddington, Vassall and Shary 

By the royal charter the patentees of Massachusetts, their associates 
and successors, were declared a body politic ; the Governor, Deputv Gov- 
ernor and assistants had power to make laws and order for the General 

of su;hTa.?Tr'-'V'' '"" ^'''"^^'^"'' '''' ^° P""'^^ '^^' ^-''^^'o- 
such laus. ^ This instrument was made a sufficient warrant to the offi- 
cers of the co.ony to execute its laws, even against the subjects of England 
who might vLsit there for trade or other business ; to punish, pardon and 

?i:r law 7v' r r" " ^'°" ^'^ ^^^ ^^"'^^ ^^-'^h- ^^e U-natlon 
I he laws of England were early recognized in the jurisdiction, except in 
so far as the condition of the colony required additions and alt;rations 

I he first court of assistants, after the company arrived, of which the 
Gove,nor and Deputy Governor were, officially, chief members, was h d 
t Charlestown on the .3d of August. This court was also n session 
twice in September ; and in October there was a General Court, composed 
of all the freemen or members of the company within the limits of the 
patent, when it was agreed that the assistants should choose the Governor 
and Deputy Governor from their number. These latter, with the board of 
assistants, were authorized to make orders for the government of the 
colony, and to appoint officers to execute them 

In the spring of 1631 it was concluded that Boston should be the 
apial of the colony, and there Winthrop and some other public men 

th^l Tn'n "\ '"'"^"^"' ' temporary coldness between Win 
thropa,, Dudle3-, who sustained some pecuniary losses by the change • 
but a cordial reconciliation soon took place between Lm As ai 
Plymouth, soon after the arrival of the pilgrims, there was much'sickne 
among the people who came to Massachusetts in .630. About two hun 

attbuteJ to change of climate, or poor provisions, or unusual exposure 
to the cold, It IS difficult to decide. Their privations and sufferings we e 
very great; and their condition was far different from that in whi h mo 



i6 HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

ot them had before lived. On finding that their stock of provisions was 
fast spending, they dispatched a ship, early in the autumn, for Ireland, 
which returned early in February following, and gave great relief to the 
plantation. 

In the large company which arrived in Massachusetts in 1630 there 
were many gentlemen of family, property and education. Winthrop, 
Dudlev, Saltonstal, Nowell, Ludlow, Bellingham, Bradstreet, Pynchon, 
Coddington and others, were men of good information and more than 
ordinary learning, and those of the clerical profession among them were 
also well educated characters. 

Among those who arrived in the colony and became permanent set- 
tlers, after the year 1630, and within three or four years, were Richard 
Bellingham, who was one of the original patentees, with Endicot, Salton- 
stal, Johnson and others; John Winthrop. Jr. , eldest son of the Governor; 
Sir Henry Vane, who, the _\ear after his arrival, was chosen chief magis- 
trate; John Haynes, who was also Governor for one year; Herbert Pel- 
ham, a near relalive of the Duke of New Castle ; Sir R. Saltonstal, Jr. ; 
and Rev. jMessrs. John Elliot, John Cotton, I'homas Hooker, Samuel 
Stone, John Norton, Thomas Shepherd, Nathaniel Ward, John Lothrop 
and Thomas Parker. Mr. Elliot, after a few months ot preaching in 
Boston, in 1631, in the absence of Mr. Wilson, and before the arrival of 
Mr. Cotton, was ordained over the church at Ro.xbury, where Mr. 
Pynch'on and others settled, soon after landing at Charlestown, and prob- 
ablv in the fall of 1630. Mr. Cotton, who arrived in the colony in 1633, 
and had been long intending to come over, was settled, with INIr. Wilson, 
over the church in Boston. IMr. Plooker and Mr. Stone were placed in 
the New Town, or Cambridge; and removed, in 1635, with several of 
their church people, to Connecticut ; and about the same time a part of 
the Dorchester people settled Windsor. Mr. Pynchon soon left Roxbury 
also, and fixed his residence higher up on that river, the present site of 
Springfield. Mr. Ward was at Ipswich, and there also Mr. Norton settled, 
after passing a few months in Pl\mouth, where he first landed. Mr. 



HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 17 

Lothrop first settled in Scituate, and thence removed to Ikrnstable ; Mr. 
Shepherd succeeded Mr. Hooker at Cambridge, Mr. Parker was at New- 
bury with a ]\Ir. Noyes. To these may be added Rev. Mr. James, who 
became pastor of the church in Charlestown, in 1632, on its separation 
from that of Boston ; Rev. Mr. Whiting, who was at Lynn, Richard 
Mather at Dorchester, after the removal of Warham and INIaverick, and 
Jonathan INIitchcll, who was early settled in Cambridge. 

The first serious danger to which the people and government of Massa- 
chusetts were exposed from the Indians was in 1637, when the cruelties 
and injuries committed by the Pequdt tribe were so great that war was 
formally undertaken against them, in which those of Plymouth and Con- 
necticut joined. This tribe resided between the Thames and Connecticut 
rivers, and at and near the present site of New London. They had 
attacked and slain several of the English who were trading in their vicinity, 
but it is probable the persons slain had previously done some injuiy to 
the natives. The English demanded satisfaction without effect ; and the 
conduct of the Pequots was so unjust and menacing, that it was believed 
the safety of the colonies required that they should be subdued. An 
attempt was first made, in 1636, to bring them to submission, and Endi- 
cot was sent with eighty men for that purpose. The Indians made cvasi\-e 
answers, and he returned without effecting a negotiation. His force was 
too small to retluce them. The natives near Boston were few, and no 
indications had appeared of their hostility to cause very anxious fears to 
the government. At a distance they were more numerous. Besides the 
eastern tribes, there were the Pawtuckets, on the higher parts of the ]\Ier- 
rimac river ; the Nipmucks, to the west and southwest ; the Pocanoketts, 
at Mount Hope and extending through the colony of Plymouth ; the 
Narragansetts, the Niantics, the Pequots and the Mohegans, in the south- 
west parts of Rhode Island, and the adjoining territory of Connecticut. 
Of these, the most formidable and savage were the Narragansetts and 
Pequots. After it was determined to make an attack on this hostile 
tribe, and in their own countrj^, the three colonies of jNIassachusetts, 

(3) 



18 HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

Plymouth and Connecticut agreed to furnish men for the Mar, The 
attack was made on the Pequots by the Connecticut troops alone, before 
those from the other colonies arrived. Major Mason, who had been a 
soldier in the continental wars in Europe, and like Standish, of Ply- 
mouth, was considered an able military character, had the command of 
them. His attack was very bravel}- and skillfully conducted. He came 
on them by surprise, though they knew he was on his march against 
them. The sachems and chiefs made a desperate defence for some 
hours, but the panic and confusion were so great, on account of the un- 
expected assault, when it took place, that they were completely routed, 
with great slaughter. The remnant of the tribe was soon after pursued to 
a distance by the Massachusetts troops, which had come up, and whollv 
routed and dispersed. The Narragansetts, Niantics, Mohegans and 
Nipmucks (except that a dispute among themselves involved the colonies 
in a degree), were subsequently peaceable and submissive, till the attempts 
made by Philip, in 1657, to destroy all the English in the country. 

In 1636, the General Court granted jCaoo for the support of the 
school at Cambridge ; and in 1638, Rev. Mr. Harvard, of Charlestown, 
bequeathed half of his estate, being about jCioo, to the same seminary. 
It soon after received the name of Harvard College, and the government 
frequently afforded it pecuniary aid, to induce men of learning to become 
teachers, and to qualify youth to maintain the peace and honor of the 
colony. At a later period, provision was made at the college for giving a 
classical education to such of the Indian youth as were disposed to receive 
it. Nor was it long (1646) before laws were enacted for the support of 
public schools in all the towns within the jurisdiction of INIassachusetts. 

By the provident care of the government, an order was early made for 
arming the freemen and training them for military service. A laudable 
spirit prevailed in this respect among the most eminent characters. An 
artillery corps was formed in 1638, composed of men of property and in- 
fluence in the colony, which has been'continued under the name of the 
Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. 



HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 19 

The first printing press in Massachusetts was put in operation in 
Cambridge, in 1639. It was the property of the widow and heirs of Rev. 
Mr. Glover, who had been engaged by Governor Winslow, of Plymouth, 
for a religious teacher in that place. Glover died while preparing for, or 
on the passage from England, and the press was worked by one Day, for 
the benefit of his family. The press, soon after, passed into the hands of 
Samuel Greene, and among the first books or pamphlets printed were an 
almanac for New England and a metrical version of the Psalms of David. 

The General Court of Massachusetts showed their abhorrence of the 
slave trade in 1645, by ordering a Captain Smith to send back, at his own 
charge, some negroes, which he had brought to Piscataqua that year. It 
was proved that they had been taken by force or fraud on the coast of 
Guinea ; and man-stealing was made a capital crime by a law passed in 
1 649. There were some instances of negro slavery, however, in the colony, 
at an early period, and even to the time of the Revolution ; but they were 
few, and the public sentiment appears to have been unfavorable to the 
practice. The slave trade was never permitted by the Government of 
INIassachusetts. 

The first instance of pretended witchcraft in the colony, which arrested 
the notice of the civil authority, was in 1648 ; when a Mrs. Jones was 
condemned and executed on a charge of that diabolical act. It is, truly, 
a subject of astonishment, that the belief of the black art should have pre- 
vailed with the learned men of that time, and that such frivolous stories 
and circumstances should have been received as evidence. 

By the death of Governor Winthrop, in 1649, Massachusetts sustained 
a severe loss. He had been the principal character in the colony, from 
its first settlement in 1630. Alike firm and mild in his disposition, he 
was qualified to govern with decision and clemency. His was the popu- 
larity which arises from the approbation of the intelligent and virtuous in 
the community ; but he never sought for popular applause by flattering a 
party, or forbearing to do what the public good required. Dudley suc- 
ceeded him ; and he had the public confidence for his integrity and dis- 



20 HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

interestedness ; but he was less tolerant than Winthrop, and wanted some- 
what of the prudence and discretion of that truly eminent man ; and En- 
dicot, Bellingham, and Bradstreet still remained to assist in directing the 
public aftairs of the colony. 

A misunderstanding arose between Massachusetts and Connecticut, a 
few years after the confederation, in which the conduct of the former was 
generally censured. Connecticut had required a small duty or custom 
on goods carried out of the river, for the support of the fort at its mouth. 
Massachusetts complained of this, particularly as it was a tax on their 
trade from Springfield. In re\-enge for this measure, Massachusetts de- 
manded a duty of the vessels belonging to all the colonies trading with 
Boston. Plymouth and New Haven complained of this act, as oppressive 
and unjust ; and in 1650, the order of Massachusetts was rescinded. At 
this period, Massachusetts was far the most able colony ; more powerful 
than all the others united. And in all associations of men, the strongest 
has dictated, more or less, to the weaker. The proportions of the sum of 
;^i,043, levied on the four colonies, for the benefit of all were as follows, 
viz: IMassachusetts, ^670; Plymouth, ;,^I28; Connecticut, /"i 40 ; and 
New Haven, £\o\. 

In 1668, the colony was in a state of uncommon prosperity. Its 
population, na\igation, and wealth had rapidly increased. The number 
of militia were estimated at 4,500; irade to foreign ports, to the West 
Indies, to Spain, and Portugal, and to the Western Isles, was extended, 
and gave great profits to the merchants. There were one hundred and 
thirty-two vessels, of various sizes, in the colony. Several laws had been 
enacted, or revived, imposing restrictions on the trade of the colony, and 
requiring high duties ; but there was then no regular officer of the cus- 
toms, and the laws were generall}' evaded. The fisheries and the lumber 
trade were the most lucrative. 

In this state of worldly prosperity and temporary exemption from dis- 
putes with the parent government, an excitement arose and agitated the 
Legislature, the clergy, and the people generally, occasioned by the 



HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 21 

formation of a new church in Boston. The settlement of Mr. Davenport, 
of New Haven, in the first church in Boston, was, for various reasons, 
opposed by a very large minority, who afterwards separated and formed 
another church. The chief objections to Mr. Davenport were his leaving 
his people at New Haven, without their full consent, and his rigid notions 
in refusing baptism to children, except those whose parents were mem- 
bers of the church. For this opposition to Mr. Davenport, and for 
separating from the first church, the seceders were censured by maiiy, and 
the General Court solemnly condemned them ; while a large number of 
the clergy publicly disapproved of the conduct of the first church, and of 
Mr. Davenport. The interest taken in the dispute was so great, that it 
had an influence on the subsequent elections of representatives ; and the 
result was that the majority in the next Assembly were opposed to the 
vote of censure before passed. The magistrates and legislators, then, and 
from the earliest days of the colony, claimed to have a voice in ecclesias- 
tical afiairs ; and their decisions, perhaps, were sometimes made under 
the influence of political and party motives. Such has often been the 
conduct of men in power, both in ancient and modern times. 

The year 1692 is memorable, not only in receiving a new charter and 
in having the government duly formed and administered, but for tragical 
events growing out of charges . for witchcraft, which furnish melancholy 
proof of the weakness and credulity of the human mind. But for the 
appalling effects of this strange delusion, in the imprisonment and execu- 
tion of several respectable persons, the facts disclosed would be matter of 
amusing curiosity. This disastrous infatuation, however, was not confined 
to Massachusetts, or to America. Similar scenes were exhibited in Eng- 
land, and some learned men gave countenance to the cruel proceedings, 
in that country as well as in New England. Superstitious credulity was 
the support of this fatal error ; for without a belief of the power of the 
Devil to make men his agents and tools, the system could not have been 
admitted. When reason and philosophy are disregarded, credulity and 
prejudice can effect everything but miracles. 



22 III STORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

On the slightest charge, and even on bare suspicion, numbers were 
adjudged guilty of the high oftence of making a league with Satan, and 
were punished, even to death, on evidence not legally sufficient to convict 
a man of the smallest offence. The eyes of the magistrates and judges 
were at last opened, by the accusation of respectable individuals, whose 
characters were above all suspicion of such a crime, even if it were prac- 
ticable. This, however, was not till about twenty had been executed, 
and many more imprisoned for a long period. It is consoling to know 
that some of the magistrates were opposed to these proceedings, among 
whom were two of the judges who acted on the occasion. And many 
others, afterwards, lamented the delusion, which had thus perverted their 
better judgment. 

So infatuated were some of the people, at the time of the highest ex- 
citement, that, by their vehement solicitations and menaces, they per- 
suaded the weak and timid to confess they were witches, who were of holy 
and exemplary conduct. Some of these afferwards declared that they had 
acknowledged themselves guilty partly through fear, because of the threats 
uttered against them, and an apprehension that they might have been 
subject to the devil's arts without knowing it. Several years before this 
time, there had been two or three executions for this supposed crime, but 
the extravagances and cruelties attending the Salem tragedy, in 1692, 
served to keep the people from similar delusions ever afterwards. 

[n the winter of 1764, the British ministry brought forward in Parlia- 
ment a plan for raising a revenue in the American colonies. A high duty 
was laid on molasses, a principal article of trade with the West Indies, 
and which was manufactured in large quantities into sugar and rum in 
Massachusetts. A bill laying duties on writs, deeds, and other public 
papers was introduced, but postponed. The act for a duty on molasses 
was passed, and the duty fixed at threepence on a gallon. There had 
long been a similar act of Parliament, but the duty was so high (being 
sixpence) that it would have operated as a prohibition had it been rigidly 
exacted. But this disproportionate and extravagant duty served only the 



HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 23 

purpose of evasion and smuggling. The article was imported but the 
law was not enforced, so that when a duty of threepence was imposed by 
the act of 1 764, and a provision made for a rigorous enforcement, the 
people complained of the measure as very oppressive. It was also matter 
of complaint that the province had no notice of the bill till it had passed 
into a law, and therefore no opportunity to state their objections to it. 
The bill for stamp duties was postponed merely on condition that the 
colonies might have i\\Q privilege of taxing themselves for the benefit of the 
parent State ; the alternative being to lay such tax in their own way, or 
submit to such tax as Parliament might direct. 

These measures of the British administration produced a great sensa- 
tion in Massachusetts, and awakened the zeal of the patriots to prevent 
the operation of the proposed system. Fresh instructions were given to 
the agent in England to remonstrate against the law which had been 
passed, and to prevail on ministers to withdraw the one which had been 
offered and postponed. They prayed the Governor to intercede for them 
with the King; they addressed protests and petitions to the Ministry; 
made statements of their past services and expenses in defence of the 
British territories, and of the great debt of the province ; * and passed 
resolutions expressive of their views of the political powers of the province, 
and of the exclusive right of the General Assembly to lay taxes of every 
kind on the people, as well as to direct to what purposes they should be 
applied. 

In these patriotic measures to resist the encroachments of arbitrary 
power, the citizens of Boston seem to have been the first. They instructed 
their representatives t in May, 1764, "to use their utmost influence to 
maintain the rights and privileges of the province, as well those which we 
derive from the charter as those which, being prior to and independent 

* The public tax for 1764, chiefly for paying off the debt incurred from 1755 to 1762 (which was 
nearly ^1,000,000), was ^138,000. 

t The Boston Representatives fur 1764 were James Otis, O.wnbridse '1 hacker, Thomas dishing 
and Thomas Gray. Richard Dana and Samuel Adams were two of the eommittee which pre- 
pared the instructions. 



24 HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

of it, we hold as free-born subjects of Great Britain ; to preserve the inde- 
pendence of the House of Representatives, which is necessary for a free 
people ; to use their influence for a law to render the judges and all 
officers of the crown ineligible to seats in the House or Council ; to pre- 
vent, if possible, new and heav}' duties on trade ; for if one trade may be 
taxed (say they), why not our land, without the consent of our repre- 
sentatives ; as all taxes ought to be laid by them, especially to insist on 
this, as otherwise we shall be no better thaa slaves." At the same time, 
hovvever, they expressly acknowledged a subordination to the Government 
of Great Britain. 

At this session, in 1764, the House of Representatives chose a com- 
mittee to write to the other colonies, informing them what measures they 
had adopted, and what statements they had made to the agent in Eng- 
land ; and soliciting their concurrence in the great object, which all must 
have in view, by giving similar directions to their agents, to be presented 
to Parliament or the minislr}-. 

They expressly refused submission to the commissioners of Charles H. ; 
and this was but an expression of their general principles; and when called 
on for troops by the agents and officers of the British Government, from 
time to time, they debated the propriety of the call, and sometimes de- 
clined to comply, and sometimes furnished only a part of what was re- 
quired. 

As one objection to the right of Parliament in laying taxes on the 
people in the province, and legislating for them in other respects, was that 
the province was not represented in that body, it was a plan of some 
individuals, of whom Mr. Otis, at first, was one, to have members from 
the colonies to sit in the British House of Commons. The ministry was 
inclined to favor the measure : but it was soon after perceived that the 
representation would be so small that it would have been of no benefit, 
and it was never formally discussed in Parliament. 

The opposing claims and opinions go to show that a stand had been 
taken by Massachusetts, which, if sustained, would render the province 



. flJnaVind- or if given «!>.*"'= 

". then sought fo.- independence. He ^^ ^^.^^ ,.^^, Brita.n, 
none then sou early stage of *<= "''.j f„,nish evidence 

ter ;t H •: ana opposed '- ^f/^^tet '^d 'that the, thought 

*^';;t::t:r -^- ^na nro,asses - «-^ ;;: rBrUi:h irberty, *e 
i, .rtxvith charter riglits and d.e p.mc 1 ^^ ^^^.^ ,.^y^ 

Tcollte Agrees were ali subject to a. utv ^^^^^,^ ^ ,,„„ 

A *e session in January '765, ^^^J j,„,ent were umes of 

difficulty and distrust 

thelawsofParlwrnent h the tunes were htheult 

The Representatives rcphcd, that ^ „ ^,^^ ^^.,^j„„ ^nd 

,,„^h pll n..t of ,/»*-/'*- t^y ;o ot ^^^^ _^^^^ ^^ „^ ,,,dorn 

goodness of Parliament, but -oM^^^,^ „f „,eat political hnportan e 
Zi goodness of the Supreme. No me ^^^^ ^^^^ ^„ ^„, ,d 

Z Adopted at U-X^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ rc'hief justice ; and itwas allowedby 
the extra grant oi .mi. 



(4) 



26 HISTORY OF MASSACHCSETTS. 

a majority of on\\ one vote. But when the court convened the last of ]\Iav 
following, intelligence had arrived that the Stamp act had passed ; and the 
Governor endeavored to moderate the feelings of the people on the subject 
in his public speech. He said, ' • the character of the monarch was such as 
to realize the idea of a patriot king ; and that the British Parliament was 
the sanctuaiy of liberty and justice, in whose proceedings thev might ha\ e 
perfect confidence. "' To this speech the House made no reply, but im- 
mediately chose a committee to consider the state of the province, who 
reported the plan of a convention to be holden at New York, composed 
of delegates from all the colonies, "to consult for the liberty and safetv of 
the people in this alarming crisis. "" A committee was chosen consisting 
of James Otis, Oliver Partridge and Timothy Ruggles ;* and they were 
instructed to consider the dithculties to which the colonies would be re- 
duced by the operation of the acts of Parliament for laying duties and 
taxes on the people. The convention met in October following, composed 
of delegates from ]\Iassachusets, Rhode Island, New Jersev, Pennsvlvania, 
Delaware and ]Maryland. They prepared petitions to the King and to 
Parliament, in which they stated and urged the arguments and views 
presented in the " Rights of the Colonies."' and in the public papere of 
the General Court of Massachusetts, in 1764. 

Before the time of holding the convention in New York, as proposed, 
had arrived, the people in Massachusetrs became impatient under their 
repeated acts of oppression and tyranny, as they deemed them to be ; and 
their highly excited feelings hurried them on to acts of great irregularity 
and disorder. A mob collected, in the month of August, suspended an 
etfig}- of the person who was appointed to distribute the stamps ; and 
thence proceeded to attack his office and dwelling-house. A lew nights 
after, they made repeated assaults on the mansion of the Lieutenant- 



* Timothy Ru^jgles, one of the delegates from Massachusetts, was opposed to the opinions ad- 
vanced at the Convention ; for w hich, on his return, he was censured by the House of Assembly. The 
resolutions went fully to deny the right of the British Parliament to tax the people in Ameriea. 
On that occasion Mr. Hutchinson said, •' It was not infrequently the case that the advocates for liberty 
den'ed others liberty to dissent from them." 



niSTOKY OF MASSAC/irSETTS. 27 

Governor, which they injured, anil threw most of his iurniture and books 
into the street.*' 

Attempts were made in 1767 to permit theatrical exhibitions, and to 
repeal the laws before made against them. In the early days of Massachu- 
setts severe laws were passed against them, but some unsuccessful efforts 
had been subsequently made to abolish such statutes. The proposal this 
year to repeal the old laws was equally vain ; a majority of the people 
were opposed to such exhibitions and entertainments. They considered 
them as calculated rather to corrupt than to improve the heart. They 
said, " they claimed, indeed, to be innocent amusements: but they be- 
lieved them the means of disseminating licentious maxims and tending 
to immorality of conduct. ''f 

The subject of slavery occupied the attention of the Legislature of 
Massachusetts at one of the sessions in 1767. A bill was passed by both 
branches of the General Court to prohibit the slave trade ; but the Gov- 
ernor refused to give it his signature. It was believed he had been so 
instructed by the British INIinistr}-, probably through the influence of mer- 
chants concerned in this inhuman traffic, to prevent the passage of such 
an act. In the time of Governor Hutchinson several attempts were made 
b}- the Representatives of Massachusetts to put an end to this practice, 
which is so gross an outrage against humanity ; but he also declined to 
give it his sanction for the same reason. His directions from the Ministry 
prevented. As correct views of civil liberty and of the rights of man pre- 
vailed in the province, greater svmpathy for the Africans was manifested, 
and many owners of slaves gave up their claims to their services. At this 
period it was computed that one-third within the province were in 
Boston. \ 

* Some valuable papers and letters which Mr. Hutchinson had collected were then destroyed, 
which was an irreparable loss. 

t The British officers then in Boston frequently recited plays, or parts of them, before some of the 
inhabitants, which led to an elTort, in those who werepleased with the amusement, to obtain a repeal of 
the statute wh-ch forbid them. 

t Some negro slaves were brought into Massachusetts afterwards, in 1770, by the ciptainofa 
vessel from the We-.t Indies; they sued for their liberty and the issue was in their favor. 



28 ///STOAT OF MASSAC/frSFT/S. 

In the fall of 1773 ^^''P^e quantities of tea were imported into Boston 
from England by merchants engaged in the East India trade, but by con- 
sent and approbation of the IMinistry, who were desirous, perhaps, of put- 
ting the temper of the people to another trial. The colonies, especially 
Massachusetts, had afforded a great market for the sale of this article. A 
drawback was allowed in England on all that was exported, which was 
another inducement to send it to America. The people in Boston had 
early notice of the intended shipment, and a meeting was held, when the 
agreement m^t to jiurchase or use tea was re\ived, and it was further de- 
termined that it should not be lantled. The consignees were desired not 
to receive it, nor allow it to be taken from the ships. They declined 
making any such promise. A second meeting was called, when it was 
voted, "That the duty on tea was a tax on the people imposed without 
their con.sent, and that sending the article into the i)rovince in this man- 
ner was an attempt to enforce the plan of the IMinistry to raise a re\enue ; 
and was, therefore, a direct attack on the liberties of the people ; and that 
whoever should receive or vend the tea would prove himself an enemy to 
the country." A committee of the town was again directed to wait on the 
consignees, with a request that they would have no concern with the car- 
goes when they arrived. They returned an evasive answer, which the 
town ileclared to be unsatisfactory and affrontive. 

When the tea arrived another meeting of the people was held in Bos- 
ton, attended also by the inhabitants of other towns, some of them at the 
distance of twenty miles. There was an unusual excitement. It was 
saitl "The hour of ruin or of manly opposition had come." The wonl 
went forth, " for all who were friends of die country to make a united 
resistance to this last and worst measure of administration." At this very 
populous meeting it was voted, " to use all lawful efforts to prevent the 
landing of the tea, and to have it returned to England." The consignees 
became alarmed, and promised to advise that it should be sent back. But 
this was not sufficiently decisive to satisfy- the people, and the meeting was 
adjourned for several hours, to give the owners or the factor time to de- 



n/STORV OF M.lSSAC/ri^SETrs. 29 

cide. These protested against the i)r()ceedin<i;s of the town ; but the town 
forbid the landing-, and even the entering of the tea at thcC'ustom House, 
at the peril of the owners. They, however, ortlered a watcli of twenty-five 
men for the security of the vessels and cargoes ; for they probal)ly feared 
that there would be a mob and wished to prevent it. 

In the meantime application was made to the Governor to order 
clearances for the vessels that they might return, but he declined, saying 
that it belonged to the officers of the customs to decide in such cases. 
He had already called on the Council for atlvice as to a guard to prevent 
riots, and to protect the merchants in landing the teas — who had refused 
to interfere in the affair, as the civil magistrate was competent to order it. 

On the following day the citizens again assembled to learn the decision 
of the factors of the vessels and cargoes, whether they would order them 
back forthwith or not, when the sheriff ai)peared with a proclamation from 
the Governor which declared the meeting unlawful, and ordered the people 
to disperse. But a vote passed unanimously that the\- would not separate, 
as the meeting was regular and their object important. .Some of the agents 
of the English merchants who had sent over the tea sent word to the 
meeting that they must decline giving orders for the return of the ships 
with their cargoes ; but that they would consent that it should be stored 
till they could hear from England. 

The people continued in a highly excited state, the conduct of the 
factors and consignees having given them no satisfaction. They again 
resolved Uiat they would prevent the landing of the tea at ever\- hazard. 
And they requested the assistance of their fellow citizens from the country 
towns, on due notice to be given, if the exigency should recpiire it. A 
portion of the people were fully sensible of the effect of any violent i)ro- 
ceedings. 'I'hey could not but e.xpect the i)ower of England would be 
exerted to reduce the province to submission. And they warned the more 
zealous and ardent to reflect on the consequences of the measures they 
might pursue, and to do nothing which could not bo justified, or which 
they should be ashamed or afraid to defend at a future day.* 

♦ Josiah Quincy, Jr., addressed the people on this occasion, and in this strain, with great effect. 



:,o j//sro\'y of .VAssAcm'SErrs. 

When it became evident tliat the owners and frxtors of the cargoes 
N\\)uld not comply with the requests of the people, nor the Governor, nor 
the officers of the customs interfere as entreated, a number of men in dis- 
guise, as the meeting broke up at the approach of night, proceeded to the 
vessels, and soon threw all the tea into the dock. No damage was done 
or offered to any other property ; and but few of the inhabitants were 
appriseil of what was intended and executed, except those personally 
engaged in the enterprise, who were about fifty. The people through the 
province approved of the spirited conduct of the Bostonians, and declared 
their readiness to support them in opposition to all unjust and oppressive 
measures of the British Ministry. And the opinion was increasing. " that 
if they would maintain their rights and liberties they must tight for 
them."* 

The new Congress of Massachusetts met in Februarv, 1775. as had 
been proposed. The Committee of Safety was continued, and its powers 
enlarged. They were clothed with authority to call out the militia, if 
necess^ir}-, and to oppose all attempts to enforce the obnoxious laws of 
Parliament. They were also directed to take charge of the military stores 
and implements in the province. And the militia were desired to con- 
form to their commamls. A return of arms, ammunition, and of men was 
ordered to be made at an early day. Concord and Worcester were desig- 
nated as suitable places to deposit the military stores. Two more general 
officers were appointed, ami the peo})le were urged to manufacture salt- 
petre as a material for gunpowder. Another address was also sent out to 
the f»eople. appealing to their patriotic feelings, and exhorting them to 
prudence, firmness and resolution in the event of an attack on their liber- 
ties by force. A new committee was chosen to correspond with the other 
colonies, and the membei-s from Boston were authorized to call a meeting 
at any time they might think necessar}-. On the first of Februan- the 
Provincial Congress adjourned to the 2 2d of March. JNIr. Hancock was 



• This w.\s the public decl.-jration of Joseph Hawley, of Northampton, and one of the leading 
members of the House of Assembly. 



niS'l OR V Of MASS A i III SE 'I 'J S. 3 1 

Chairman of the Commitlce nl" Safety at this liinc; niil when he went to 
Phiiatlelphia early in the sprini,^ to attentl the Continenlal Congress, Dr. 
Jitseph Warren was appointed in his place. 

(jovernor Cage was not ignorant of tlu' proceedings of either llie Con' 
tinental or Provincial Congress, anil he was disposetl to take [)ossession of 
such military stores as were in the vicinity of Boston, where were his head- 
(piarters. He was informed that there was a ([uantil\- at Salem or Dan- 
vers, and he sent a tletachment of 150 men by way of IVhirblehead, whither 
they were transported by water, to seize them. When the troops reached 
Salem it was said the stores were at Danvers. In proceeding to that \illage 
it was necessary to pass a bridge on the way from Salem. When the liritish 
troo])s arrived at the bridge they found about fifty of the militia posteti 
there under Colonel Pickering. They had taken u]) the bridge and aj)- 
peared determined not to permit the British detachment to pass. The 
Commander of the corps ordered that the planks of the bridge be replaced, 
but his orders were disregarded. The British ofllcer was much e.xcited 
and declared he would i)roceed. Some of the citizens of Salem endeavored 
to pre\-ail with him to return, intimating that if he altempteil to pass by 
lorce, or should offer any violence, he would be oppo.sed at every hazard 
by the militia on the otlier side who were much increased in number and 
were determinetl to oppose force to R)rce. A compromise was effectetl.* 
The planks of the bridge were replaced, the British ofllcer anti some of 
his men were suffered to pa.ss over, and then immediately returned. 'l"he 
affair was brought to an issue without bloodshed. But it served to show 
the British general that the Americans had spirit and resolution to defend 
their rights, and to convince the latter tliat there must be a resort to force 
unless the people submitted to the arbitrary acts of the British Parliament. 
The Provincial Congress was again held the 22d of March at Concord. 
The aflair at Salem and the movements of General Gage excited appre- 
hensions of attacks on other places, and a rej^ort was circulated that the 

* Rev. Dr. Barnard, of Siilein, was aciiiiainteO with the British officer who commanded the party. 
He proceeded to the spot, and assured the officer lliat Col. Pickering and his men would never permit 
him to seize the stores. 



32 HISTORY OF MASSACHCSETTS. 

British troops in Boston would be sent out to destroy the miHtary stores 
which had been collected. 

Karlv in the spring an additional number of British troops arrived at 
Boston, and an opinion prevailed that the crisis was approaching, when 
the alternative must be base submission or war. With a \tx\ great ma- 
joritv of the people there was no hesitation as to the choice. A few, 
indeed, who had long opposed the policy of the parent government, 
thought it would be most prudent still to petidon and submit. 

Before the Provincial Congress separated, which was on the 15th of 
April, it was agreed to raise troops immediately for the defense of the 
province, for it was known that General Gage had receixed orders to put 
down all opposition, and all the civil power was concentrated in him, 
with an army for his support. The Committee of Safety was directed to 
appoint field officers for the regiments to be raised, and to make the 
greatest preparations for defense which the resources of the province 
would afford. Committees were also chosen to visit New Hampshire, 
Connecticut and Rhode Island, to inform them of the measures adopted 
in Massachusetts, and to request their support and co-operation, as 
events might require. This meeting took care also to provide for an- 
other assembly of delegates or representatives of the people, to be held 
on the last Wednesday of May, the usual time for the organization of the 
General Court. 

On the 1 8th of April several Bridsh military officers from Boston were 
observed riding through Cambridge and on the road to Lexington, and 
an apprehension arose that some hostile movement was at hand. The 
Committee of Safety gave orders for the removal of the stores from Con- 
cord. Dr. Warren, the chairman, who was most vigilant and enterpris- 
ing, and who had directed a constant watch of the troops, received notice 
during the night of the i8th that a detachment of the British forces in 
Boston, of 1,000 men, were landing at Lechmere's Point, in Cambridge. 
He immediately dispatched messengers to Lexington and Concord to 
give the people notice that they would probably be attacked. Directions 



HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 33 

were given for the militia to protect such stores at Concord as had not 
been removed. Notice was also sent to Mr. Adams and Mr. Hancock, 
who were then at the house of the clergyman in Lexington, of the ex- 
pected approach of the British troops. These two patriots were among 
the most active opponents of arbitrary power, and were particularly de- 
nounced as deserving the vengeance of the British Government. The 
detachment of British troops arrived at Lexington, near the church, soon 
after daylight. A company of the militia was already collected there. 
The British commander rode up to them and said, "Disperse, you 
damned rebels, disperse ! " and immediately fired his pistol, and the sol- 
diers who were in front fired also. The militia dispersed, but some of 
them fired on the British as they retired. In this attack eight of the 
militia were killed and several wounded. 

The British reported that the militia first fired, but it was fully proved 
afterwards that the British began the attack, and that the firing from the 
Americans was only from a few as they were retiring. 

Within ten davs after the afiair at Lexington and Concord a large 
number of the militia collected in Cambridge and Roxbury, but manv 
of them without suitable military equipments, and their organization 
was quite imperfect. Ihe alarm occasioned by the battle .at Concord was 
very great, but a resolution was manifested to hasten to the place of dan- 
ger, and, if possible, to prevent further aggressions. Some of the militia 
from Connecticut, New Hampshire and Rhode Island arrived at an early 
day, accompanied by individuals who had been brave officers in the cam- 
paigns of i756-'6o. 

On the 15th of June Charlestown Heights were fortified. A detach- 
ment of about twelve hundred men was ordered to that place on the 
evening of the sixteenth, and at the daylight of the following morning 
a redoubt was thrown up on the eminence south of Bunker Hill, and 
much nearer the river which separates Charlestown from Boston. At 
this time they were discovered by the British in the capital, and a ship of 
war l}ing in the river opened a heavy fire upon them. They were also 

(5) 



34 HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

fired upon from the fort on Copp's Hill, at the north part of Boston, and 
from several armed vessels which had come up on the western side of 
Charlestown. By noon they were exposed to a heavy fire from various 
directions. They were much fatigued by the labor of the night and 
morning in throwing up the redoubt and breastwork. No recruits had 
then arrived from the main army at Cambridge. A little after two o'clock 
a large body of British trooi)s passed over irom Boston, estimated at 
nearly three thousand, and landed at a point southeast of the redoubt 
where the Americans were posted. At this time some Connecticut troops, 
under Geneial Putnam, arri\ed near the redoubt, and on the descent of 
the eastern side of the hill, while the British were forming. They threw 
up some new mown grass against the fence, and waited the approach of 
the enemy, and before the attack was made some of the New Hampshire 
militia arrived and were posted near to the Connecticut troops, for it was 
evident the British intended to attack the redoubt where Colonel Pres- 
cott was posted with the Massachusetts troops, on the rear, rather than to 
march directly up in front. The number of Americans at this time in 
the fort and by the fence on the easterly side of the hill was about two 
thousand or two thousand two hundred. Colonel Prescott commanded 
at the fort, but it appears that General Putnam had the direction or in- 
spection of the whole, as he rode from the fence to the fort and back 
several times, and also as far as the Neck, to hasten the recruits which 
were ordered on at a late hour. That no earlier or greater reinforce- 
ments were sent on to Charlestown from Cambridge was probably owing 
to an apprehension that the British would make an attack on the militia 
in that place, by crossing the bay, from the western part of Boston. 

About three o'clock the British troops marched up, as was expected, 
chiefly towards the Americans posted at the fence on the eastern decliv- 
ity of the hill on which the redoubt had been thrown up, and began the 
fire when at some distance. The militia had been ordered to reserve 
their fire till the enemy should approach very near, and when the word 
was given the}- poured such an incessant fire on the British regulars that 



' nrSTOKY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 35 

great numbers fell, and the others soon retreated to the place where they 
landed. They were soon rallied again by their officers, and again were 
repulsed in a similar manner as before, and with great slaughter.* The 
British in Boston were spectators of the scene, and a reinforcement was 
sent over immediately. The Americans received but little additional aid, 
which was obtained by General Putnam, who rode over the Neck, and 
sent on such of the militia as were near. 

When the third attaek was made by the British they had more light 
artillery, and the militia under Putnam and Prescott had but one com- 
pany, and that was not well prepared. The attack was now made more 
directly on the redoubt, but in two parts at the same time. The Ameri- 
cans had but little ammunition, which was soon expended, and very few 
of them had bayonets. They received the British bravely, t but were soon 
ordered to retreat. Those in the redoubt retired first, and were in some 
measure covered by those at the fence on the eastern side of the hill. 

Dr. Joseph Warren, who was then President of the Provincial Con- 
gress, a few days before appointed a Major-General, was slain near the 
close of the action. He was not in command on that occasion, and was 
merely a volunteer. His ardent patriotism would not suffer him to re- 
main at a distance from the scene of danger. He was urged not to go 
and expose himself unnecessarily. He replied, " that he could not rest 
while others were fighting for the country, but he must take a part with 
them." 

General Warren had the confidence and affection of the people in a 
remarkable degree. He was possessed of ardent feelings and honorable 
principles, and the spirit of patriotism was as pure as it was warm in his 
heart. He was in the prime of life, and of the best education the coun- 
try could aff"ord. The other men of distinction who were killed or 
mortally wounded were Colonel Thomas Gardner, Lieutenant-Colonel 
Parker, and Majors Moore and McClary. The loss of life on this mem- 

* At this time the town of Chailestown was set on fire, which added to the horrors of the day. 
t The British officers said "the Americans fought like devils." 



36 mSTORV OF MASSAC/if'SETTS. 

orable dav was verv great. Of the Americans, about one hundred were 
killed, and nearly three hundred wounded or taken : of the latter between 
thirty and fortv. The British had between fourteen and fifteen hundred * 
killed and wounded : a large proportion of which were killed, including 
upwards of eighty officers, f 

This was a disastrous event to [Massachusetts ; but the people did not 
despond : and if there was some want of system and promptness on the 
occasion, those who had proposed taking possession of the place were not 
blamed. There was evidently a want of plan in the enterprise : but, per- 
"haps, the unprepared condition of the country is a sufficient excuse for 
the imperfection of the arrangements. If the militia at the redoubt had 
been aided bv one thousand more men from Cambridge, by noon, which 
might have been easily done, and more ammunition sent, the British 
would not have taken the fort. But there was little ammunition in the 
whole army then collected : and if there was just cause to fear an attack 
from the British, on the American main army, it might have been good 
polic\" not to weaken it by sending a reinforcement to Charlestown. The 
British Generals were connnced that the Americans would Jig^'^, as well 
as argue, for their rights, and were thus deterred from making another 
attack for a long time, which gave opportunity to collect military stores, 
and teach the men the militar}- discipline, necessar}- to fit them to oppose 
the regular troops of Britain with eflfect. 

On the day of the batde in Charlestown. the Provincial Congress, then 
in session at Watertown, voted to procure provisions for the troops, who 

* One account gave eleven hundred wounded, and seven hundred and forty-five killed. The 
Briti>h only would know, and they were unwilling to confess the full extent of their loss. 

t The numbers engaged on each side in this battle have been variously given. Prescott went on 
with one thousand, or a little more — parts of three regiinents. but not full ones. He was reinforced 
with a very few, till just before the battle began, when probably one thousand more arrived, all mak- 
ing about two ihovisand, or two thous;uiJ two hundred. The British consistethof about three thousand 
at first, and afterwards one thoiBand or fifteen hundred were added. But some have estimated the 
whole at five thousand. This is probable too high. When they m.ide the third and last attack 
they had not many more than than at the first ; but io the two first repulses their loss was very 
gre.u. 



mSTORV OF MASSACHl'SETTS. 37 

were then under enlistment for eight months, and to collect firearms 
wherever to be found. And the Committee of Safety issued orders for all 
the militia within twenty miles to repair to Cambridge. The aid of the 
adjoining colonies was again solicited in furnishing more troops ; and it 
was stated that there were ten thousand regular troops in Boston, under 
General Gage, and that more were daily expected. Application was made 
to the Continental Congress, at Philadelphia, that they would appoint a 
General-in-Chief, to command the whole American forces. The ^Nlassa- 
chusetts Congress had made such a request soon after the affair at Lex- 
ington and Concord, and the General Congress had already acted on the 
subject. On the fifteenth of June, it voted to appoint such an oflicer ; 
and on the sixteenth, on motion of one of the delegates from Massachu- 
setts. George Washington, then a member of that body, was iinanimoush 
elected. Four Major-Generals were chosen, a few days after, one of whom 
was Artemas Ward, of Massachusetts, and eight Brigadier-Generals, three 
of them from Massachusetts, John Thomas. William Heath, and Seth 
Pomery. * 

General Washington arrived at Cambridge on the second of July, and 
took command of the troops there assembled. The Congress of Massa- 
chusetts sent a committee to meet him at the western bounds of the 
province, and when he reached Cambridge, made an address to him, de- 
claring their entire confidence in his patriotism, his ability and wisdom, 
and their readiness to aftbrd him all the aid in their power. In his reply, 
he spoke of their zeal, their sufferings and senices, in the cause of the 
liberties of the countr}-, and of his need of their support in the trying 
duties which he had undertaken. His reply was characteristic of the wis- 
dom, intelligence, and modesty of one who, through his whole life, and 

* Dr. Benjamin Ch\irch. who had aced with the patriots, and was one of the representatives of 
Boston, was detected, about this time, in correspondmg; wijh the British officers. He was arrested and 
examined by a committee of the representatives. His conduct was considered very reprehensible, but 
he was only punished by being e.vpeiled from being a member of the house. He complained of his 
treatment, while others thought he merited a more severe punishment. His letters were in characters, 
but were deciphered by Rev. Dr. Samuel West, of Dartmouth. 



38 /r /STORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

especial!}' after this period, received the universal esteem, confidence, and 
admiration of the country.* 

This was the commencement of the great and finally successful rebel- 
lion that gave America liberty and independence, the history of which is 
too length}' to incorporate in the present work. 

At the close of the war, in 1783, the population of Massachusetts was 
nearly 360,000. The increase for eight years had been only 10,000. In 
a time of peace, for the same period, it would not have been less than 
100,000. Besides those slain in battle, many of the soldiers died with 
sickness in camp, and many more in the prisons of the enemy. Most of 
the Americans who were taken, whether on sea or land, were thrown into 
prison ships at New York, and many thousands died by inhuman treat- 
ment or gross neglect, f 

In April, 1784, Congress called for $5,500,000, for the expenses of 
that year, including claims against the continent, which ought then to be 
satisfied: but stated, at the same time, that the $12,000,000 before re- 
quired for the term of three years, would be sufficient to meet present de- 
mands, if promptly collected. The portion of the last sum required of 
Massachusetts, was $1,800,000 ; and the State was still in arrears for this 
amount, in the sum of $730,000 ; and if this could be paid, no additional 
tax was called for, to meet the requisitions of Congress ; still the amount 
due on former taxes, and an appropriation tor payment of a part of the 
wages due the soldiers, according to a promise of the preceding year, and 
the bonds for impost duties, made a large sum, which it was extremely 
difficult to raise. Added to all which Congress called for $636,000 in a 

* General Washington was instructed by the Continental Congress to consult the civil authority of 
Massachusetts, and in his military operations to conform as far as possible to their wishes and directions' 
His conduct, while in the province, was agreeable to his instructions. His own sense of right would 
suggest the same course to him. For, though a brave officer, he knew the importance of submitting to 
the civil authority. 

t In 1783 Mr. Hancock was Governor, Samuel Adams President of the Senate, E. Gerry, S. Hig- 
ginson, G. Partridge, S. Gorham, and S. Holten were members of Congress. In 1784, Francis Dana, 
who had been Minister to Russia, was a member of Congress, and in 1785 he was appointed a Justice 
of the Supreme Judicial Court. 



HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



39 



way confidential, to satisfy immediate demands ; and Massachusetts was 
assessed $95,000 of that amount. There appeared to be an unwilling- 
ness to have the full demands on the country publicly known. It was 
afterwards found that the sum was wanted to pay the interest and an in- 
slalment on the debt due in Europe, borrowed by Dr. I'^ranklin for the 
use of the United States. 

James Bowdoin was chosen (Jovernor for the political year commenc- 
ing May, 1785. This election was by the members of the General Court, 
as there was no choice by the votes of the people. There was a vague 
and unjust charge against Mr. Bowdoin, of attachment to the British 
government,* which was made by those ignorant of his real character, and 
who seem to have forgotten his able services in the most critical periods 
of the country. Mr. Bowdoin was among the earliest and most decided 
opposers of the oppressive and arl^itrary measures of the British Ministry ; 
he was one of the ablest opponents of Governor Hutchinson, and often 
received his particular disapprobation, and his refusal to a seat in the 
council. He was one of the five delegates first chosen to the Continental 
Congress, in 1774 — and was the first President of the l^xecutive Council, 
when the government of Massachusetts was organized in 1775, soon 
after the war began. 

When I\Ir. Bowdoin was placed in the chair, the State and country 
were in a critical situation. The difficulties of a jiublic natnre were 
almost as great as at any period of the war. A spirit ui discontent pre- 
vailed to such a degree, as to make the most patriotic rulers extremely 
anxious; and Governor Bowdoin felt all the responsibilities of his sta- 
tion. l"he demands on the State amounted to $10,000,000, including its 
portion of the continental debt ; and no system of credit had been 
adopted to give satisfaction to the numerous creditors. 

The controversy with the State of New York, as to the claims of 
Massachusetts to lands west of Hudson River, was settled in 1787. The 



* So early was this charge made, for party pirrpobes or in ignorance, against some of the purest 
patriots in the htate or nation. 



40 HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

dispute was of ancient date. New York atone time denied the right of 
Massachusetts to any lands west of that river ; and Massachusetts claimed 
the width of its bounds on the seaboard to the west, till it reached the ex- 
treme limits of the United States, by the treaty of 1783, excepting a cer- 
tain distance from the river fully and clearly included in the early patent 
of New York. The subject was referred to Congress in 1784 by the two 
States, and commissioners appointed, who held several meetings to hear 
the agents of each State concerned, but came to no decision. Agents 
from the two States met at Hartford, in December, 1786, and agreed 
that Massachusetts should have the preemptive right to two large tracts of 
land within the territory which it claimed, being about 5,000,000 acres; 
but which was a small part of the whole tract demanded ; and that the 
jurisdiction should be and remain in New York. In 1787, these lands 
were sold, or the right to buy them of the Indians, for $1,000,000. And 
during the same year, the bounds between New York and INIassachu- 
setts, on the ^rtj'/ side of the Hudson River, were definitely fixed. There 
had been frequent disputes respecting the line ; and acts of violence were 
sometimes committed by those w-ho set up interfering claims. A decision 
was made in 1773, '^y commissioners from New York and Massachu- 
setts ; but the war of the revolution took place before the decision and 
agreement received the confirmation of the king. 

At the session of the General Court in March it was ordered that a 
portion of the tax then collecting might be paid in public securities ; 
which proved a great accommodation to the people, who could purchase 
them far below their nominal value. Provision was also made by a land 
lottery for redeeming $160,000 of the public paper, which made a part of 
the debt of the State. Several townships of land in Maine were surveyed 
and divided into lots. Every ticket entiUed the holder to a lot of land, 
more or less valuable according to its relative situation. The tickets 
were sold for public paper. The land was set at a low price ; but there 
was so much wild land then in the market, that the schema proved no 



HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



41 



better to many of the public creditors than to have disposed of their 
paper for a sixth part of the nominal sum. 

]\Ir. Hancock was elected Governor for 1788,. 1789, and each succes- 
sive year, including 1793, when he died. In 1788 General Lincoln was 
chosen Lieutenant Governor, but was not particularly acceptable to Mr. 
Hancock. The conduct of the Governor towards General Lincoln was 
condemned as unjust and illiberal. The Lieutenant Governor had usually 
been commander of the castle, by appointment of the Governor, and re- 
ceived about §1,000 for his services. As Lieutenant Governor he had no 
salary. Governor Hancock did not appoint General Lincoln to the com- 
mand of that fortress. At a future session inquir}' was made why the 
appointment had not been given him. The Governor replied that he had 
the sole right to appoint, and that it was also for him to decide whether 
he would have any one to command the castle. Great complaints were 
made against the Governor, not only for not appointing the Lieutenant 
Governor, who was thus deprived of his salary as well as the office, but for 
undertaking to judge of the propriety of carrying into effect a law or re- 
solve of the Legislature. Governor Hancock claimed the right to decline 
executing a law of the General Court, if he could not see the necessity or 
propriety of the law himself This was considered a mere evasion. The 
Governor was too intelligent to reason in this way, except that he was 
opposed to giving the office to General Lincoln; and he lost many 
friends by his treatment of that meritorious officer. A committee re- 
ported in favor of $600 salary for the Lieutenant Governor, but the House 
of Representatives allowed only $533. The majority in that branch were 
the friends of the Go\ern(ir ; but the Senate were willing to do justice to 
General Lincoln. 

The first representatives from ]Massachusetts in Congress, under the new 
Constitution, which was in April, 1789, were Fisher Ames, George Par- 
tridge, George Leonard, George Thacher, Elbridge Gerry, Benjamin 
Goodhue, Theodore Sedgwick, and Jonathan Grout ; the four last were 
chosen on the second trial. At a ratio of one representative for thirty 



42 HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

thousand inhabitants, Massachusetts was probably entitled to twelve ; but 
the population was not then accurately known, though _it was supposed 
to be three hundred and seventy thousand; for, in 1784,11 was three 
hundred and fifty-eight thousand. 

In October, 1789, President Washington made a tour through the New 
England States. He had not been in ^Massachusetts after March, 1776, 
when the British troops left Boston. His reception by the people and by 
the rulers of the State was such as had never been given to any individual. 

In 1790 the General Court of Massachusetes requested Congress to 
assume the residue of its debt incurred for measures of defense against 
the common enemy ; and commissioners were soon after appointed to 
ascertain the amount expended by the several States. It was found that 
Massachusetts had expended $18,000,000 ; of this $4,000,000 had been 
assumed by the Federal Government, and $2,000,000 had been allowed 
and advanced by Congress at different periods of the war. Six States 
were found to have advanced more than their proportion, and seven less. 
The largest balance was in favor of South Carolina, and Massachusetts was 
the next highest of the creditor States ; the balance credited to the State 
was $1,250,000. 

It would appear, by this statement, that ^Massachusetts bore the ex- 
penses of the war of the revolution to the amount of $10,250,000. The 
additional sacrifices, losses and expenses, by the State and individuals it 
would be difficult to calculate. In 1790, however, the debt of the com- 
monwealth was much less than the sum last mentioned ; as payments had 
been made to a large amount during the war and the period which 
elapsed between its close and the establishment of the Federal Gov- 
ernment. 

A census of the United States was ordered in 1790, when it was found 
that the number of inhabitants in jMassachusetts was four hundred and 
seventy-eight thousand ; one hundred thousand of which were in JMaine. 
Not a single slave was returned in the State, and there was then no other 
State in the Union which did not contain many. 



HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 43- 

In 1 79 1 an effort was made to repeal the law of Massachusetts against 
theatrical exhibitions. The most active in this attempt were citizens of 
Boston, where, if at any place in the State, a theatre could be supported, 
or was much desired. A great portion of the inhabitants, and especially 
the aged, were much opposed to it. They considered plays generally, or 
frequently, of an immoral tendency ; that those who appeared as actors 
were far from being exemplary, if not really dissolute and profligate, and 
that it would lead to great expenses. Those who were in favor of a 
theatre contended that it was a literary and elegant entertainment, and 
that it would be easy to select such plays as were chaste and pure in 
sentiment, and therefore would be for the improvement both of the man- 
ners and morals of the people. There were several meetings in Boston on 
the subject. It was proposed io petition the General Court to repeal the 
standing law, and to instruct the representatives to use their influence in 
favor of a repeal, but the proposal did not succeed. It was advocated by 
Perez Morton, William Tudor and Charles Jarvis ; and opposed by Samuel 
Adams, Thomas Dawes, Jr., Benjamin Austin, Jr., and H. G. Otis. 

In pursuance of the instructions of President Washington, Mr. Jay, 
one of the purest patriots of the revolution, formed a treaty of amity and 
commerce with Great Britain in 1794, and thus fortunately prevented an 
open rupture between that country and the United States, which the 
French rulers of that period attempted to produce, and which even some 
American citizens seemed ready to justify. Owing to former preju- 
dices against England, and to the belief that the treaty was not sufficiently 
favorable to the commerce of the United States, it was denounced before 
it was thoroughly understood, and in Boston there was a meeting at 
which it was condemned, "as injurious to the interests of navigation, as 
derogatory to the character of the government, and dangerous to the 
peace of the country.'"* The Chamber of Commerce in that town soon 

* Perhaps there can be no greater evidence of the unpopularity of the treaty agreed to by Judge 
Jay with England in 1794, than the almost unanimous vote of a Boston town meeting, attended by the 
political friends of Washington, and supporters of llie Federal Government at that time. It is true, 



44 HISTORY OF MASSACm^'^ETTS. 

after gave an opinion that the treaty would be more favorable than had 
been feared, and that it would be proper to ratify it. 

The two great political parties dividing the people of Massachusetts, 
as well as of the other States, nearly in equal numbers, remained when 
John Adams was elected President of the United States in 1797. General 
Washington had held the place eight years, and then positively declined 
a re-election. j\Ir. Adams had been Vice-President while General Wash- 
ington was the chief magistrate, and he had filled several highly important 
avd responsible stations in the general government with great ability and 
integrity. He was one of the first delegates to the Continental Congress 
in September, 1774, and continued to be appointed every year ailer till 
he was sent Ambassador to France in 1778. 

In 1798 the Federal Government gave authority for building several 
large frigates, and for raising an army for the protection and safety of the 
United States if an attack should be made by any foreign nation. Presi- 
dent Adams ordered one to be built in Boston, which was called the 
Cojistihiimi, and the officers from JMassachusetts, appointed for the pro- 
visional army were Henry Knox as jMajor-General, and John Brooks as a 
brigadier. 

At the election iu April, 18 12, by great efforts on the part cf the 
Federalists, who then advocated peace and the free pursuits of commerce, 
Caleb Strong was chosen Governor in opposition to IMr. Gerry, who had 
been in office two years, and had the support of the Democratic party. 
The elections for the Governor and members of the General Court called 
forth uncommon exertions. Mr. Strong was elected by a ver}- small ma- 
jority of votes, but the majorit}- of Representatives was also Federal, and 

however, that the meeting was got up at short notice, and the report was that the treaty was highly in- 
jurious to the commercial interests of the country. But the fact affords proof of the great mischief of 
acting under a sudden excitement. The treaty had not then been published. General Washington 
gave a gentle rebuke to the Bostonians, on this occasion, which they indeed justly deserved, but which 
they would not have received from any other President without a prompt expression of their feelings. 
The opinion expressed by the Chamber of Commerce in Boston, a few days after, when there had been 
time fully to consider the terms of the treaty, was very different from the resolutions of the town, which 
were adopted imder the influence of a popular excitement. 



HISTORY OF MASSACFirSETTS. 45 

was then distinguished as the peace party.* The pubHc mind was greatly 
excited, and the spirit of pohtical parties manifested itself with more than 
common bitterness. 

It was now five years since Governor Strong occupied the chair of 
State, and during this period he had kept entirely aloof from party politics. 
In his address to the General Court on this occasion, as at a former time 
when there were severe disputes between the parties, he aimed rather to 
allay than to excite political controversy. 

A few weeks after. Mr. Strong was inducted into office war was 
declared against Great Britain by the General Government, as had been 
some time apprehended. The country was very poorly prepared for war, 
though the Administration chose the time to make the declaration. Little 
preparation had been made even for defense on the seacoast, or for the 
protection of commerce and navigation, which were exposed to the hostile 
attacks of a powerful enemy by this unnecessary measure. The President 
immediaiely called on the Governors of the several States for aid to pro- 
tect the country by the militia, while the few regular forces which had 
been raised by the Administration were sent to invade the British province 
of Canada. 

* At the beginning of the session in May, 1812, before the declaration of hostilities by Congress, but 
when it was heard the dominant party in that body were disposed to war, the representatives sent a 
memorial remonstrating against it, and pr2ying that peace might be preserved. The votes were 406 
for the memorial, and 240 against it. 

(Continued in next volume. ) 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA, 



COMPRISING 



THE LIVES AND RECORDS 



OF MANY OF 



THE LEADING PROFESSIONAL AND BUSINESS MEN OF THE 
STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

Arranged in Alphabetical Order. 



WRITTEN AND COMPILED EXPRESSLY FOR COMLEY'S HISTORY 
OF THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS, 



I LLUSTRATED 

IVi//i niiimroHs Portrait Engravings on Steel and Stone, from Photographs taken 
from Life, and Engraved by our First Artists. 



BOSTON: 

COM LEY BROTHERS. 

,879. 



BIOGRAPHIES. 



Biography is the most important feature of history, for the record of 
lives of individuals appears to be invested with more vitality and interest 
than the dry details of general historical narrative. In biography the 
attention is not distracted by a multiplicity of leading and disconnected 
events, but every incident that is related serves to illustrate the character 
of some eminent person, and is another light by which we can see more 
clearly the elements v,-hich form their being. 

The gentlemen whose biographies make so large a portion of this 
work have not been selected on account of their wealth, their social 
position, or their particular avocation, but from other and more worthy 
motives. In the number are embraced the professions and most of the 
other callings of life, and they find a place in this book from the circum- 
stance that they excel in their respective vocations — are men of sterling 
virtue, and in their efforts to establish position and fortune they have 
given wealth, stamina and character to the State. We have no favorites 
to support, no political or sectarian interest to advance, but in choosing 
the subjects of these biographies have been guided by a sense of duty 
and a wish to pay some tribute to well deserved merit. 

Biographies of those who have become identified with the progress of 
the great State — who have guided and directed its business currents year 
by year, swelling with the elements of piosperity, and who have left the 



impress of their genius and judgment upon the legislative enactments of 
our State — must be sought after with avidity, and must be fraught with 
useful information. 

It will be a source of satisfaction to the reader to know that the 
biographies of individuals who adorn this work are not drawn by the 
flighty imagination from airy nothingness, but represent the lineaments 
of men nearly all of whom are living, who have achieved lofty positions, 
are still active in the busy, bustling world, and afford standing examples 
of business excellence and moral and social virtues. 

In writing the lives of these men, the author has not attempted to 
swell facts beyond their proper magnitude, for the incidents which make 
up the biographies are of sufficient importance in themselves to vest them 
with interest without the adventitious aid of the imagination. 







SnjH^lXMan iSmUUStri'iiy St-MV. 





U^¥- U^y~ 



t^.6.. 



COMLEY BROS LONDON Jr NEW YORK 



[aoi 



BIOGRAnnCAL F.NCVCLOr.-EDLl. 203 

Alden, Caleb, was born in Barnet, Vt. , in 1807, and was the seventh 
of a family of eight children. Caleb received a few months' schooling 
each winter, spending the summer nn)nths on his fathers farm. When 
19 he went to W'estfield, and was engaged by Ezra Alden as over- 
seer of wt)rk on the New Haven and Northampton canal, then in pro- 
cess of construction, which position he held about two years. In the spring 
of 1829 he went to IVIaryland, and took a contract for building locks on 
the Chesapeake & Ohio canal, at the Great Falls of Potomac, remaining in 
that section on that and work for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad till 
about 1832 or '33. He then returned to Westfield and formed a com- 
pany with his late employer, Ezra Allen, to com})lete the New Haven tt 
Northamj)ton canal. When finished he was made its superintendent from 
the day it opened, and there remained until it was closed to make 
way for the building of the New Haven &. Northam])ton Railroad. While 
holding the above position, he, with Mr. Allen, built several bridges for 
the Baltimore t^i: Allenton Railroad, near Chester. He also built some 
highway bridges near Farmington, Conn. Was also one of the contract- 
ors on the Connecticut River Railroad. He afterwards opened a flour and 
feed store in Westfield, whch he kept many years. On the closing of the 
canal, Mr. Alden took a contract for building that section of the New 
Haven & Northampton Raihx)ad, between the State line and Northamp- 
ton. This con"n>leted his contracting career. He, after this, was called 
upon b\' a cotton mill of North Oxford, to help it out of trouble, which 
he did bv taking full charge of the institutit)n and running it about a 
year ; and though he knew nothing of the business, he, by his tact, 
financiering antl good management, left the mill in good shape. Mr. Alden 
was one of the original prompters to start the We.stfield, now First Na- 
tional Bank of WestfieUl, and became one of its directors from the day it 
was incoriMiraled, a position he kept until his decease. Was one of the 
original Trustees of the Westfield Savings Bank, and Trustee of the West- 
field Academy for about fifteen years. In 1853 he sold out his mercantile 
business in Westfield, and, after taking two years' rest from Inisiness cares, 
he was called upon by a frientl in the whip manufacturing business for 
I 



204 BIOGRAPHICAL EXCYCLOP^EDIA. 

help. He took charge of this institution, and at the end of eighteen 
months had so well succeeded in getting the business on a sure and solid 
foundation, that he withdrew, leaving his friend and his business in first 
class condition. In iS 56 he started in business with one Goodell, in 
Springfield, but in 1S57 he ran the business alone. During this time, by 
the failure of a New York house, who had a mill in Springfield, and to 
whom ]\Ir. Alden had furnished wool, he came into possession of stock 
and fixtures of their mill, and thus was compelled, as it were, to go into 
the manufacturing business. The firm was known as Caleb Alden, 
though a INIr. Ripley was a partner with him. In i860, he, with C. W. 
diapin and Stephen Bemis, formed a partnership as wool dealers, they 
buying up large quantities and holding ; but the price of wool so de- 
creased, that they either had to sell at a great loss or use it up in some 
way. INIr. Alden suggested that there were two ways to prevent hea\y 
losses — one to buy up more wool, the other to manufacture it. They 
chose the latter \\ay, rented four woolen mills, all of which Mr. Alden 
had full charge of When stock on hand was all used up, the partnership 
dissolved : this was in the latter part of 1861. In 1863 he bought the 
property and mill then C)ccupied by him and bought out ^Nlr. Riplev, op- 
erating the mill alone until the time of his death. In 1864 he moved his 
family to Springfield, where his sons still live and cany on the business 
left by their father. Mr. Alden was twice married — the first time to Miss 
Sarah Blood, of Bristol, Conn., by whom he had five children, all of 
whom died when quite young. He was married a second time, to INIiss 
Wealthy Allen, of Westfield, by whom he had three children, of whom 
two sons, J. C. and E. A. Alden, still live, and of whom mention is made 
in this article. INIr. Alden departed this life INIarch 27, 1872, and his loss 
was one universally felt by all who knew him. He had no one to thank 
but himself for his success in life. He was a man of marvelous business 
sagacity and perseverance. For hctnesty and integrity he had no superior. 
Mr. Aklen \\as very benevolent, but it was unaccomi)anied In' ostentation 
or display. He was universall}' lo\ed and respected, and mourned by all 
classes of citizens, and during his life did more to furdier the interests of 
others than anv onc^in the communitv in which he lived. 



BrOGRAPHICAL EhfCYCLOPMOTA. ^icn 

Arms, G-eorge A., a man who, from an humble position and by his 
own efforts, has risen to affluence and social position, and through all the 
events of a checkered life has preser\'ed his integrit}' unimpeached, well 
deserves the pen of the historian ami to be held up as a model to posterit}'. 

George A. Arms was born at Deerfield, Mass., March 7th, 181 5, and is 
the son of Christopher 'I\ and Alice Arms, both of Deerfield. Until the 
subject of this sketch was 14 years of age, he was educated in the common 
schools and academy of his native town. After this, his parents moved 
to Lower Canada, and f(.)r six months he attended school there. After a 
few years his father and family returned to Greenfield, Mass., where 
George worked on a farm for two seasons ; he came to the conclusion 
that farming would not make mone}' fast, and ha\ing amliition to make 
his mark in the world, he, when nineteen, started out in search of fortune 
with a pack on his back. He arrived at Boston with $1.20 in his pocket, 
though after a few weeks found a situation in a store at $25 per annum 
with board. His desire to progress, and the natural adaptability he 
showed to become a business man, soon found for him a better position 
with $100 per year and board. At the end of the first twelve months he 
left his situation to enter the wholesale trade, which he thought better 
suited to his taste and ideas. Here he remained until the hard times 
of 1837, when he was compelled to gi\e up his position. He then 
returned home and remained idle a few weeks. He then went to North- 
field, and entered the employ of B. B. Murdock, on trial. In three 
months he here secured a permanent position at his own figure. In 
three years his employer offered him a partnership. For reasons of his 
own he declined, and in 1841 he commenced business for himself This 
he carried on successfully for seven years, when, on account of failing 
health, he was compelled to sell out his good will and business. He to- 
gether with his family moved to Columbus, Georgia. One winter there 
much improved his condition, and he started homeward, stopping at Kvans- 
ville, Ind. , where he jmrchased what is known as a "prairie schooner" 
and horses, and took a trip of about one thousand miles in his newly 
purchased vehicle. During this trip he settled his brother permanently on 



2oS BlOGRAPinCAL EXCVCf.OP.^.DIA. 

a fiirni. Soon after this he arrived home and embarked in business, open- 
ing a store at Bellows Falls. Vt. . dealing- principally in cKuhing and fur- 
nishing goods. One year later he took in a partner and added the manu- 
facture of clothing to his already growing business. The manufacturing 
business prove^l \er\- successful ; in it they employed o\er one hundred 
hands. After four yeai"s he sold owi his entire interest to his partner, 
intending to start building briilges and depots for railroads. The ex- 
plosion o'i the railroad in Canada put a stop to his operations, and he 
returned for a short rest to his native town. Soon after he removed with 
his family to Ohio, where he commenced coal mining. This was in 
1856. Here he remained two years, doing a successful business. In 
1858 he settled in Cireentield and engaged in the hardware business, to- 
gether with agricultural seeds, fertilizers, and house furnishing goods. 
This he continued successfully, and for over ten years he has also been 
associatetl with the manufacturing business, being one of the original 
incorporators of the Barkus Vice Company. In 1874 the}' united with 
the INIillers Falls Manutacturing Company, antl both formed what is now 
known as the ]\Iillei-s Falls Ci.>mpany. Mr. Arms is and has been one of 
the directors since the incorporation, and is one of the principal stock- 
holders of the present company, which has never failed to pay a dividend 
since its organization. He has been successful in all of his business pur- 
suits, from a rare combination o( industry and judgment, which has e\er 
restrained him from embarking in visionary projects, and kej^t his energies 
properly directed, adding to and extending his business operations. 

jNIr. Amis is a chiUl of ^Massachusetts, antl has been nurseil amidst 
her institutions. He has. through a long coui-se of successful life, showed 
himself worthy o'( all honor, and the State in which he fn-st drew his 
breath can hope all things from his talents, patriotism and integrity. 

Arnold, Harvey, born in the town of Adams, June i6th, 1806. 
ilied September 4th, 1876. 

He was itlentirted with the business interests o'[ his native place nearly 
half a century, and during the greater part o'( that period he made the 
mc)st ccmsiderable figure ameingst its citizens. 




(^ 



c::z^--r'^^-^ 




-l>r. 



COMuev BBOS LONDON » NEW VOP 



Uol\^-. 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOP-KDIA. 2t! 

Receiving an academical education at the Wesleyan Academy, Wilbra- 
ham, Mass., he began the study of mecHcine with Dr. Isaac Hodges, to 
whose daughter he ^^■as subsequently married. 

Compelled bv ill health to abandon his studies, he entered upon his 
career as a manufacturer in the spring of 1828, when he associated him- 
self with his brother Oliver and with Mr. Nathan Blinn, under the firm 
name of Arnold, Blinn & Co. 

They began operations with only fourteen looms, and in unpreten- 
tious quarters, occupying a portion of Hodges, Sanford & Co. 's woolen 
factor)', which stood on the site of the present Union Mill. Here they 
continued until 1831, when they secured a water ])rivilege immediately 
above that of Hodges, Sanford & Co. and there built the Kclipse Mill, 
which they jointly occupied with Edmund Burke, each operating twenty- 
one looms. 

Four }-ears afterwards, the Arnold Bros., purchasing the interest of 
Nathan Blinn and the machinei"}- of Edmund Burke, established the firm 
ofO. c*t H, Arnold, and in 1836 they still further extendetl their opera- 
tions by buying of Hodges, Sanford k Co. the building known as the 
Slater Mill, which was situated a short distance above the " Eclipse," and 
which was also erected in 1831. They now controlled nearly a hundred 
looms, and found a ready sale for their goods at tlie hands of 'lurner & 
Lafiflin, of the Union Print Works. 

The failure of this firm in 1837 compelled the Arnold Bros, to sus- 
pend, and finally rendered necessar}' the sale of all their property. 

This was a severe blow to Harve\- Arnold, but he quickly recovered 
from its effects, and in 1844, himself, J. B. Jackson, and J. D. Stewart 
obtained a lease of the Union Print Works, and under the style of Arnold, 
Jack.son & Co. entered into the business of calico printing. Still retaining 
his interest in the Print Works, he formed, in 1846, a copartnership with 
Oliver and John F. Arnold, and under the firm name of O. Arnold & Co. 
recovered control of the Eclipse and Slater mills ; and in 1848 bought 
the x\rnoldsville Mill i)roperty in South Adams. 

The Slater Mill was abantloned in 1855, and its water power united 



2ii BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOP.^.DIA. 

to that of the Echpse ]\Iill, whose capacity was at once increased to one 
hundred and fifty U)oins. 

In 1856 the firm of O. Arnold & Co. formed a hmited copartnership 
for five years with the owners of the Union Print Works, which they oper- 
ated under the style of Arnold & Gaylord, Agents ; and in June of the 
same year, they, in company with A. P. Butler, purchased of the assignee 
of Joseph L. White's estate the Phoenix Mill property on Main street, sub- 
sequently sold a part of their interest therein to A. J. Ra}', and with him 
continued business as the firm of Arnolds & Ray. 

The term of O. Arnold tl- Co. 's limitetl copartnerslii]) with the owners 
of the Union Print Works having expired, the Arnold Bros, organized in 
i860 the firm of Harvey Arnold & Co., and built the Arnold Print Works 
on Marshall street. 

These works covered about four acres, and had a cai)acity for the i)ro- 
duction of 50,000 yards of prints daily. 

From this period until the time of his death Han'ey Arnold graduall}' 
extended his business connections. He became the principal stockholder 
in and the President of both the Williamstown and North Pownal Manu- 
facturing Companies, controlled the operation of a thousand looms, and 
was recognized as the leading manufacturer of cotton cloths and calicoes 
in Western Massachusetts. 

He established a commission house in New York City for the sale of 
the Arnold Prints, and for a series of years made weekly trips to that city, 
giving his personal attention to the sale as well as the manufacture of his 
goods. 

Harve}- Arnold was the directing force in ever)- firm of which he was a 
member, and the reliance which his associates placed upon his judgment 
was justified by the success that almost invariably crowned his undertak- 
ings. Fire and failure at last combined to impair the fortune he had ac- 
cumulated, and the death of his estimable wife hastened the termination 
of his own busy, instructive and honorable career. 

Harvey Arnold was as affable in the social as he was persistent in the 
business walks of life ; and the emjjloyee felt no less than the capitalist the 
charm of his urbanity. _ 





?^^, 




COMLEY BROS. LONOONStNEWYORK 



n^^ 



BIOGRAFHICAL ENCYCLOr.EDIA. 217. 

He early became a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, ami 
was ever afterwards one of its staunchest supporters. 

His religion was a radical belief, and although it never led him into 
vehemence of discussion or fervidness of worship, it opened before him a 
noble prospect for the exercise of— one might almost say— an unexampled 
generosity. 

lo the Church itself he gave nearly $50,000 ; to many of its members 
he lent his influence and his money with a freedom and upon a kind ot 
security that spoke well for his confidence in the honorablencss of human 
nature. But beside being one of the most generous of donors, he was 
also one of the most sagacious of counsellors, and the religious society, 
which was so largely indebted to him for financial assistance, also ex])eri- 
enced the benefit of his judicious advice, of his executive talent, antl < .f 
his exact, business-like methods. 

Barnett, General James, President First National Bank. Born in 
Otsego Co., N. Y. 182 1, lived in Cleveland since 1826. Senior member 
of the wholesale hardware house of George Worthington & Co. Served 
in the war of the rebellion, organized and went to the field with the First 
Reg. Ohio Light Artiller\', consisUng (jf twelve light batteries of six guns 
each, served as Chief of Artillery on the Staff of General Rosecrans, and as 
commanding officer of the Artillery Reserve of the Army of the Cumber- 
land ; has been connected with the First National Bank of Cleveland, 
Ohio, since ten years, and its President since 1875. 

Bemis, Stephen Chapin, was born in Harvard, 1802, and was the 
son of Rev. Stephen Bemis, a Congregational clergyman, the pastor of the 
church of Harvard up to the time of his death ; his mother was a Springfield 
lady, and the daughter of Phineas Chapin of Chicopee. Mr. Bemis and 
one sister composed the family, the latter was the wife of Deacon John Pen- 
dleton of Willamansett, who died many years ago. Stephen received only 
a common school education, and at the age of 14 left home and moved 
to Springfield, where he entered the store of his grandflither. Deacon Joseph 
Pease, as clerk. He at an early age showeil great ajnitude for trade, and 
so well did he succeed in his position, that at the age of 18, or in 1820, he 



2i8 BIOGRAPHICAL EXCYCLOF.tEDIA. 

was admitted to the partnership of his late emplo}-er, who, four years later, 
or in 1824, sold out his entire interest to Stephen, who then formed a 
partnership with Chester W. Chapin, who is a distant relative, and who 
had been carrying on an opposition store for three years on the opposite 
side of the street. The firm of Chapin & Bemis continued business for 
three years, when Mr. Chapin withdrew, and soon after commenced his 
memorable career as a public carrier. In 1830 Mr. Bemis, having been 
ver}- successful in his business, sold out his store and bought out the mill 
privilege at Willamansett, M-here he erected a large building for the manu- 
facture of woolen cards, augers, and mechanical tools. He also built a 
number of boarding-houses for his employees and commenced operations 
with a large number of hands. 

The following year he moved his fomil\- to Willamansett, and soon 
after opened a country' store. The business had hardly become thoroughh- 
established when the factory was destroyed by fire, but it was immediately 
rebuilt. After carrj'ing on a large and flourishing business for several 
years, he became somewhat embarrassed financially, and removed to Troy, 
N. Y., where he carried on the hardware business till 1843, when he 
moved to Sj)ringfield to engage in the same branch of business. In the 
mean time, the Willamansett factory had been sold, the card-making tle- 
partment discontinued, and the tool manufacture transferred to Springfield, 
where the business was pursued at the shops on the Mill River in company 
with Amos Call, his brother-in-law, under the firm name of Bemis &. Call. 
About the }ear 1845, he engaged in the retail coal trade in company with 
Chester W. Chapin, and opened the secc)nd coal \ard in the citw Mr. 
Chapin was for many }-ears interested in the Bemis &. Call Tool Compan\-, 
and when Blanchard & KimbaU's Springfield locomotive W(.)rks, which for- 
merly stood on Lyman street, the site of the Wason Car Company, were 
sold under the hammer, Messrs. Chapin k Bemis |)urcliased the entire 
stock, which thev resold to a ]\Iis.souri railroad at a great advance, making 
one of the best financial operations in which Mr. Bemis was ever engaged. 
In 1850 Mr. Bemis removed his business to the old store in the Pvnchon 
House Block, and having there increased facilities added to his trade a 



BIOGRAPinCAL EXCYCr.OP.EDIA. 219 

heavy line itfiron aiul steel. In 1853 Mr. Bemis built the building now 
occupied by Eemis, Phillips & Co., and Beipis & Call, and on its comple- 
tiiiu Mr. Bemis sold out the large hardware department of his business to 
his son, S. A. Ikmis ct H. C. IMiner, who were known as S. Augustus 
Bemis & Co. 

In 1867 Mr. Bemis had an attack of jiaralysis of the brain, the same 
di.sease was the immediate cause of his death, brought on by over work 
and constant applicadon to business, and the following year withdrew 
from all active pursuits, disposing of his business to his sons and their 
partners. Mr. Bemis lived from that time till his death in strict retire- 
ment, and only occasionatlv was he seen on the street. He was a director 
of the Agawam Bank from 1863 till 1S69, and President of the Hampden 
Savings Bank for fifteen years prior to 1871, during which time the bank 
did not lose a dollar. He held many offices and i)laces of trust, his first 
official duties elating back to al;)t)Ut 1830, when he was appointed Post- 
master of Chicopee. He was Tax Collector for Springfield in 1834 ; the 
following year a member of the Board of Selectmen. In 1837 he was 
chosen to the Legislature of Springfield the same time that Edward Everett 
was elected Governor. Up to this time he had been a staunch Whig, 
but he ever after affiliated with the Democratic party. He was appointed 
Justice of the Peace by ( jo\ernors Boutwcll, Banks, and Bullock, and 
was afterwards Coroner for Hampden County. In the old times, he was 
Eire Warden, and his long pole is still preserved as a family relic. He 
was one of the engineers of the fire department in its earliest days, and was 
a member of the Board of Alderman for 1856-7 and 8. In 1861 he was 
elected Mavor bv the Democrats, defeating a good man of the other 
party, and the following year was re-elected, defeating Henry Alexander, 
jr. ^Ir. Bemis was one of the old war Democrats : and never did the fiery 
enlhusiasin of his nature show to betlrr advantage than during those earlv 
rel)ellion davs when he worked with his whole soul to aid in raising and 
ecpiipping troops for the front. His prominence in the party was l)y no 
means local, for he was several times a Delegate to the National Demo- 
cratic Conventions. Had an ardent temperament joined to an ir(.>n will — 



220 BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOTjEDIA. 

never gave up or turned back. In manner, quick and impulsive, and at 
times almost passionate, but under all was the warmest kind of heart. 

In 1828 Mr. Bemis was married to daughter of Rev. Dr. G. Keel of 
Chicopee, by whom he had seven children. His wife and children still 
survive him. 

Betz, John F., was born 8th April, 1831, in the kingdom of Wiirt- 
emberg, Germany. He came to America in 1832 with his parents, and 
lived in Philadelphia, afterwards settling at Schuylkill Haven and Potts- 
ville, Pa., where the subject of this sketch received a common school 
education. In 1844 he served as an apprentice with D. G. Yuengling, 
lather of the present New York brewers, and stayed with him as foreman 
until 1852. After this he went to Europe, where he practiced brewing 
with Paul Kolb, at Stuttgart, Germany. From there he went through 
Austria and Bavaria, where he trained himself thoroughly in brewing 
and malting, returning in 1853 and located in New York City, where he 
commenced business with H. Clausen in Fort\-f(_)urth street. This con- 
tinued about five years. The partnership was dissolved, and Mr. Betz 
carried on the business with Mr. Foote. In a short time Mr. Betz 
bought his interest and assumed sole management. Here he remained 
until 1865, when he leased his brewery, and started business in Rich- 
mond, Va., with D. G. Yuengling and John A. Byer. This continued 
four or five years, when he, in 1867, went to Europe and })racticed brew- 
ing at Dreher's brewery, Vienna. In 1869 he returned to America, and 
leased (Gaul's) his present brewery in Philadelphia, Avhich he still con- 
tinues. In 1873 he became a jjartner with H. P^lias, New York Cit\-, 
which still continues. In 1874 he assumed the management of die 
Forty-fourth street brewery. In 1875 he took an interest in the Star 
brewery, Bauer & Co., proprietors. In 1874 he built a malt house on 
St. John street, Philadelphia — capacity 175,000 bushels annually — and 
run another malt house on Front street — capacity 30,000 bushels. He 
has also large investments in railroads and mining interests, which have 
amassed for him considerable fortune, 



BIOGRAPHIC A L EIVC ) XI OP-EDIA . 22? 

Bogle, George, President of the Columbia (Pa.) National Bank, was 
born at Columbia, Pa. Mr. Bogle received a common school education 
and was apprenticed to the trade of cabinet making, which he never fol- 
lowed, it being distasteful. He turned his attention to the lumber trade, 
which he followeil successful!}' for many years. About six }-ears ago he 
discontinued it, however, and entered the milling business, which, like 
all other business ^'entures with him, has proved successful. He has 
been successful from a rare ccjnibination of industry and judgment. He 
can enjoy the h-uit of the seed he has sown whilst his nature is susceptible 
, of enjoyment and the stamina of life not weakened and decayed. He 
has all the elements of happiness within his reach, and they are of his 
own creation. 

Briggs, George Nixon, was bcirn among the hills of Berkshire, 
Mass., on the 12th of April, 1796. He was the youngest but one of 
tweh'e children of Allen and Nancy Briggs, both born in Rhode Islantl. 
He was but se\'en years old when the family remo\'ed from South Adams 
and made a new home in the village of Manchester, Vermont. There, 
in sight and within the shadows r)f the Green Mountains, the most su.s- 
ceptible \ears cif iiis }'oung life were passed. He helped his parents at 
home till they again removed to the State of New York, and White 
Creek, Washington County, became their abode, and the scene of im- 
portant experience to the subject of this sketch. He received onl\' a 
limited education, and when asked at what college he graduated, he re- 
plied : "At the hatters' shop." At about the age of sixteen he attended 
f(jr t)ne }'ear a regular grammar schoijl. 

In August, 1 8 13, with five dollars he had earned at haying, he left 
home to go studying law or medicine, and, with his trunk on his back, 
went to Berkshire County, Mass., penniless, his brother aiding him a 
little till 1 8 16, when he died. 

In 1 8 13 ]Mr. Briggs entered the law office of Esquire Kasson, at 
South Bend. In 18 14 he removed to Lanesboro, where he pursued his 
studies in the office of Luther Washburn till 18 18, when he was admitted 
to the bar. 



i28 B/OG/^A rmCA L EXC I 'CI. OF. EDI A. 

A few montlis prior to this event of his hfe he was married to Har- 
riet, onlv daughter of Ezra and Ziphenia Hall, of I^mesboro. Fi^r 
twelve vears Mr. Briggs steadily and sucxossfully pursued his jxith. anvl in 
1S30 his popularity found a demonstration in the voice of the people by 
his election as a member of Congress from the Eleventh Congressional 
District, including, besides Berkshire, jxirt of Hampshire County. For 
twelve cvMisecutive vears ^Ir. Briggs represented the eleventh district in 
Congress, when he retired : but he was not long permitted to hide him- 
self in the grateful obscuriiy of his quiet village home, and in 1843 the 
people of the commonwealth whose interests he had wntcheti over in the 
councils of the nation nominated him the choice of the next Governor. 
His name was greetetl from the seaboard to the we.^ternmost hilLs. He 
was triumphantlv elected. The State was fiUetl with a result deemevl so 
auspicious to its highest interests. Soon after the year 1S44 was u.shereil 
in. Cicorge X. Briggs went to Boston to assume the functions with which 
the State of Mas.s;ichu.>^etts had invested him. The successive winters 
from 1844 to l8^I found Governor Briggs in Boston as surely as the 
sweet summer intervals of all those years allurevl him to rural beautiful 
Berkshire. 

Governor Briggs was otTicially connecte«.l with eilucation during seven 
vears as Governor of the Commonwealth, and during sixteen years as a 
Trustee of Williams College. After retiring from the Governorship in 
1851. he live*.! for three yean^ a quiet, happy and prosperous life, resum- 
ing the professioti of law. In August. 1853. he was appointed by Gov- 
ernor Clitlord ludge of the Court of Common Pleas, an honor which 
gratified both its recipient and the public. In 1858 the Common Pleas 
Court of Mas.s;\chusetts was abolished and the Suj^erior Court organized 
in its stead, which brought to an end his public life, and at the age of 
64 he tinislieil his work for the commonwealth" which had honored him 
for a quarter of a cenlur}-. and which he had honored in return. 

He was a strong advix^ate of temj^erance. and his name is inscribevl 
upon the roll of the cariiest and boldest and most successful workers for 
the suppression of stjong drink. 




^, 



COMLEV BROS. LONOON&NEW YORK 



L^-^l. 



BIOGRATHICAL EX'CYCLOP.KDIA. -"23! 

He was a man uni\ersall\- loved by all who knew him, he possessing 
all the qualities that g'^ to make a true man. His death was sadly 
mourned bv the people not onlv of the section where he lived, but b\- 
the people at large. 

In the afternoon, on the 4th of September, 1861, while preparing to 
cany to their home some ladies whose carriage had broken down in front 
of his house, while taking down his overcoat, he overthrew a loaded gun 
which had been misplaced under it. It was discharged, and the contents 
were lodged in the side of his face, intlicting a terrible wountl. He con- 
tinued to sink until the evening of die nth, when he fell into a gentle 
slumber, from which he never awoke. 

Bubier, Samuel M., a man who from a humble position and by his 
own efforts has risen to affluence and social position, and through all the 
events of a checkered life has preserved his integrity unimpeached well 
deserves the pen of the historian, and to be held up as a model to 
posteritv. The subject of this sketch was bom in Lynn, Mass., 1816 
(June 23), of Christopher Bubier, of Marblehead, and Johanna Attwill, oi 
Lynn. Mr. Bubier received a limited education at the town school, and 
at the age of eleven commenced to work at the shoe business. \\'ishing 
to seek every opportunity to advance his knowledge in book learning, 
Mr. Bubier attended evening .school until eighteen years old, when he re- 
linquished both work and partial study to enter the common school. 
Here he remained until he obtained a clerkship in Boston in a provision 
store kept by John Worcester, who is still actively engaged in business in 
Boston. After clerking two years, Mr. B. returned to Lynn and com- 
menced the shoe business on a small scale, working his own stock for a 
year or more. In November, 1840, he started a factory on Market street. 
near to his present location, remaining on the street ever since. The first 
ten years of his business career was a hard struggle, though after that tiade 
gradually increased until his sales have reached the sum of one million 
dollars annually. At that time he employed about five hundred hands. 
About 1863 machinery was introduced, but up to that time all work was 
done by hand. In 1874 Mr. Bubier retired from active business life, and 



2j2 BfOGRArniCAL EXCYCLOP.^.DIA. 

since then the business has been carried on bv his sons. Tn 1870 IMr, 
Bubier was alderman in the city government. Six years later he was 
elected Mayor, and so well did he fill the office that he was re-elected the 
following year. In 1854 Mr. Bubier was elected a director in the Central 
National Bank, a f)Osition he held until elected mayor, when he resigned. 
No one man has done more to beautify the city of Lynn than the subject 
of this sketch, and the elegant edifices erected by him on Market street 
will prove a lasdng monument to his memory. Among them the Bubier 
Block, 156 by 65 feet, four stories and basement, Central Block, 100 by 
65, four stories and basement. Mr. Bubier was married in 1844 to IMarv 
W. Todd, of Topsfield, Mass., by whom he has had three sons and one 
daughter. 

On the opposite page we present a fine steel engraving of S. M. 
Bubier, Esq., taken from an oil painting done some fifteen or twentv 
years ago, when Mr. B. was in the prime of life, and in which portrait 
are well expressed the character of a man who has so honored his birth- 
place and vocation, growing with their growth, strengthening with their 
strength. Throughout his successful career Mr. Bubier has been a hard 
worker, and believes that energy and industry will accomplish almost 
anything. It is this that has gained for him esteem, position and wea'.th, 
and if the youth of the rising generation would go and do likewise they 
would in time achieve what he has done. 

Chapin, Chester W., was born in the town of Ludlow, Hampden 
County, Mass., December i6th, 1798, and is a direct lineal descendant, in 
the sixth generation, of Deacon Samuel Chapin, the founder of the family 
in this country. His grandfather, Ephraim Chapin, was one of the 
largest landowners in Ludlow and its vicinity, his estate covering lands in 
Chicopee, Ludlow, and Springfield. His father, also Ephraim by name, 
occupied a portion of the old Chapin estates which, at the time of his 
death, had not been divided. Though rich in lands, these early settlers 
were otherwise possessed of small means, and cultivated habits of the 
strictest economy. Yet those were days of families inversely proportion- 
ate to the read}- means of the householder. In such circumstances are 




'■SmsSZMmStil'Y 




I ^sO 



BIOGRATHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA. 235 

often found the beginnings of the amplest fortunes, and that strength of 
character which gives the widest influence. 

Ah'eady there had been instilled into the mind of the boy those lessons 
which have served him so well, when, at a tender age, his father died, 
and left the family to manage for themselves. His older brother, 
Ephraim, having been sent to college, the duty of remaining at home to 
care for the interests of his mother and her farm devohed upon Chester. 
While so doing, he attended the district school at Chicopee, which rankeil 
high as a school of its kind in those days, and afterwards was sent to the 
Academy at Westfield, after which he entered on the active pursuits of 
life. As was often the case at such schools, the culture acquired, how- 
ever valuable, was of no more use in after life, than the acquaintances 
formed in the circles with which he became intimate. At twenty-one, he 
went to Springfield, and first found employment at the old Williams 
House, kept there by his brother Erastus. Not relishing the business, 
he was next found keeping a store of his own on Chicopee street. He, 
with the late Stephen C. Bemis, soon after formed a copartnership, which 
continued several years. At this time, INIr. Chapin was married to a 
daughter of Col. Abel Chapin, of Chicopee. He was next found at work 
upon the construction at Chicopee of the first mill ever built in this 
countr}- where paper was made by machiner}'. He took the contract for 
the foundation and masonry of the factory for diversion, and did the work 
in so satisfactory a manner that when, a few years later, the mill was 
burned, they urged him to undertake a renewal of the job, but other 
engagements then intervened to prevent him from complying. A change 
in business then occurred which turned the attention of the young man 
in the direction of his real life work. At the solicitation of Jacob W. 
Brewster, of Saekett's Harbor, and Horatio Sargeant, of Springfield, he 
was induced to take an interest in the extensive stage line in the Con- 
necticut valley. Here he first made the acquaintance of his life-long 
friend, INIajor Morgan, of Palmer, who was engaged in the stage line 
running east and west from Springfield. Occasionally holding the reins 
on the Hartford & Brattleboro line, Mr. Chapin was soon found to b; 



236 BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

more needed in developing the general interests of the route, which so 
prospered under his management as to yield him large returns on his 
investment. 

Soon after the demonstration had been satisfactorily made by Thomas 
Blanchard that steamboats could journey from Hartford to Springfield, 
Mr. Chapin grasped the idea and utilized it. He bought out Blanchard 
soon after 1830, and for a dozen years controlled the passenger traffic 
between the two places. Ever since, he has maintained his business 
relations with boating lines, till he now controls largely the New York and 
New Haven lines of steamboats. INIeanwhile, having largely by his per- 
sonal efforts, secured a connection between Springfield and Hartford by 
rail, he became a director in the corporation, and took active interest in 
its management. Extensive postal contracts having been taken by him 
on the route from Terre Haute, Ind., to St. Louis, Mo., he sent the 
stages there, and used the rail as the means of transporting mails from 
Hartford to Springfield. 

In 1850, Mr. Chapin became a director in the Western Railroad, but 
resigned the position to accept the presidency of the Connecticut River 
Railroad, the same year. In 1854, having attracted attention by the 
successful management of that road, he was elected President of the 
Western Road, which he accepted. In two years, fifty miles of rails had 
been renewed, the bridge over the Connecticut river rebuilt, twelve first- 
class locomotives, one hundred and forty-five first-class freight cars, and 
six passenger coaches had been added to the rolling stock of the road. 

The interests of the company called him to England in 1855, where 
he was successful in negotiating a loan of half a million of dollars for 
further improvements. Very soon the road commenced to pay large 
dividends, a practice so long continued that it has become a habit. At 
various times during his presidency of the Western Road, he was solicited 
to take the management of other large railroatl interests, but always 
refused. In business relations elsewhere we find ]Mr. Chapin mentioned 
as a stockholder and director in the N. Y. C. & H. R. K. R. ; as a 
prominent owner and manager in the Collins Paper Companys property 



nfOGRAPnrcAr. E.vcYCLor.'i'in/A. 239 

aaJ business at Wilbrahain, and of the Canal Company at West Spring- 
Held, and as President of the Chapin Banking & Trust Company of 
Springfield, having been former founder and President of the Agawam 
Hank of the same place. 

He was honored with a seat in the Forty-fourth Congress of the 
United States as a fitting testimonial from an appreciative public. Although 
a life-long Democrat, he was elected by a large vote in a district which is 
now and always has been, strongly Republican. The honor thus con- 
ferred, coming in the way it did, precludes the necessity of extended 
eulogistic remarks concerning Mr. Chapin's personal excellencies. Kind 
and obliging, of unblemished reputation, cool and decided, but con- 
siderate, and one " whose promise is good as his bond. ' 

While Mr. Chapin is naturally and by instinct a prudent and some- 
what conservative man, a careful observer of his career will find that he 
has always been among the foremost to embrace every improvement in the 
onward march of civilization, and one who has done much to develop 
the elements which have given to the State its business importance and 
honorable position. 

Chapman, Reuben Atwater, born Sept. 20, 1801, was the only 
son of Samuel Chapman, who had settled in Russell, Mass. , on inheriting 
a farm from his father, the Rev. Benjamin Chapman, of Southington, Ct. 
His mother was Hannah Ferguson, of ])landford, whose father had 
served with some distinction as captain in the Revolutionary army. He 
received no collegiate education, but spent five years in studying the 
classics and higher mathematics with the minister of lilandford, and law 
in the office of Alanson Knox, Brig.-Ck'n. of militia, and at that time a 
leading lawyer and politician of the western part of the State, whose 
eldest daughter, Elizabeth, he married June 2, 1829. Mr. Chapman 
commenced practice in Westfield, where he remained but a short time. 
When about twenty-six years old he opened an office in Monson, where 
he remained between two and three years, when he removed to Ware. 
Here he soon attracted the attention of Daniel Wells, of Greenfield, then 
a prominent lawyer, afterwards Chief Justice of the State. ]5y the advice 
3 



240 BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOP.KDfA. 

of Mr. Wells he removed to Springfield about 1830, and opened an 
office in connection with George Ashmun, formerly of Enfield. The 
partnership of Chapman and Ashmun was dissolved in 1850 on account 
of I\Tr. Ashmun's election to Congress, and growing absorption in politics. 
In 1849 ^^''- Chapman was a[)pointed, in company with Judge Curtis and 
the Hon. N. J. Lord, to revise and reform the proceedings in the Massa- 
chusetts courts of law, and with these gentlemen he prepared the code 
now in use. Mr. Chapman continued his law practice alone until 1854, 
when he invited Franklin Chamberlain, of Lee, to remove to Springfield 
and become his partner. This connection lasted until Mr. Chapman's 
appointment as associate justice of the Supreme Court in i860. On the 
resignation of Chief Justice Bigelovv in 1868, Judge Chapman was ap- 
pointed to his place, the highest position to which a lawyer can aspire in 
Massachusetts, and for which he was eminently fitted both by character and 
acquirements. Notwithstanding his laborious professional life, Judge 
Chapman found time for large and varied reading, and for much labor for 
benevolent and religious objects. He was much interested in the Wash- 
ingtonian temperance movement, and delivered a number of addresses 
on this subject. In the Congregational denominatit)n he was regarded as 
an authority in all matters of church polity. Politically he was a whig 
and anti-slavery man, and during the troubles connected with the settle- 
lement of Kansas was a member of the Massachusetts Committee of the 
Emigrant Aid Society. At the first election of President Lincoln he was 
elector-at-large in Massachusetts. 

He died at Fluelen, Switzerland, June 28, 1873, <'* ulceration of the 
bladder. 

Chase, Anthony, of Worcester, Ma.ss., was born in the neighboring 
town of Paxton, on the i6th of June, 1791, of a family honorably dis- 
tinguished in New England from the first settlement of Massachusetts. 
His father very soon moved into the limits of Worcester, and his own 
youth was spent uj)on a farm, while his education was received at a dis- 
trict school and at Leicester Academy. A part of his minority, owing to 
the untimely death of his flither, was spent in Uxbridge and Berlin, bu' 




7^T^7^^:r'f 



i^A- 



^--^^ , 



ex 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA. ^43 

in early manhood he returned to Worcester and entered into mercantile 
business, forming a partnership with his brother-in-law, the late Hon. 
John Milton Earle. 

The flourishing city of Worcester presents a conspicuous example of 
the changes and developments which the introduction of railroads has 
brought about in many of the interior towns of this country. The 
"heart of the commonwealth" of Massachusetts and the shire town of 
the good old county of Worcester, it is to-day the railroad centre of New 
England, with a population of 55,000 souls. For the first third part of 
the present century it was simply an ordinary-sized New England town, 
but the high culture and marked ability of the professional gentlemen 
who took up their residence here, and the general intelligence of the 
people, put a stamp upon the place which made it conspicuous above the 
rest. The same high standard has been maintained to the present time, 
and the elevated tone of society here in the earlier years of the century 
is still preserved. 

The subject of this sketch has taken a prominent part in the enter- 
prises which have brought about the present state of things. Endowed 
with a mind of remarkable vigor, clearness and comprehension, from 
early youth his society was sought by the intelligent and cultivated, and 
his influence among his associates has been great. Worcester has never 
had a more brilliant circle of young men of culture and promise than 
that to which young Chase was admitted, among whom he enjoyed the 
particular friendship of William Lincoln, the scholarly man of wit, 
Christopher C. Baldwin, the genial librarian of the American Antiquarian 
Society, and a half-score of lawyers and statesmen whose names have 
gained a national renown. In every enterprise for the intellectual and 
moral improvement of the town, Mr. Chase has taken a prominent part. 
In connection with the late Hon. Alfred Dwight Foster, he invited George 
Coombe, of Edinburgh, to deliver a course of lectures in Worcester upon 
education and culture, the two gentlemen assuming the pecuniary re- 
sponsibility for its success. Entertaining at his house Mrs. Coombe, the 
daughter of the great Mrs. Siddons, she expressed her surprise that. 



244 BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOP.-flDIA. 

"having come forty miles into the interior of America she had not met 
any wild Indians !" He was one of the proprietors of the Massachusetts 
»S)>V from 1823 to 1S35. 

The Blackstone Canal, leading to tide water at Providence, the first 
stimulus to the growth of Worcester, was opened late in the autumn ot 
1828, and in the following spring the Worcester and Providence Boating 
Company was formed, with Mr. Chase as its agent. He was very soon 
appointed collector of revenue for the canal corporation, but in March, 
1 83 1, was elected Treasurer of the county of Worcester, an office which 
he held for thirty-four years, or until June, 1865, when he was succeeded 
by his youngest son, who held it for eleven years longer. In 1832 he 
was chosen Secretary of the Worcester Mutual Fire Insurance Company, 
and in 1852 was made President of the company, and continues to hold 
that post. He was one of the founders, and first Secretary of the Wor- 
cester Lyceum (1829) ; he shaped the Worcester County Mechanics' 
Association in its infancy, drawing up its constitution and by-laws with 
his own hand (1841). He was one of the corporators of the Central 
Bank (1828); was for many years Treasurer of the Worcester Agricultural 
Society, and has been for a long period a director in the Citizens' (now 
National) Bank, and a Trustee and Vice-President of the Worcester County 
Institution for Savings. Mr. Chase takes great interest in the public 
schools, having often served as a member of the school committee, and is 
never wanting where a call is made for intelligent and disinterested pub- 
lic spirit. He was at one time an alderman, but has frequently been 
compelled to decline public offices, the duties of which interfered witu 
his regular avocation. He gave his three sons, as the best of patrimonies, 
-oXi education at Harvard College, nor did they fail to make the best use 
of the facilities he placed in their hands. 

Mr. Chase is a member of the Society of Friends, and holds the posi- 
tion of an elder in that body. His whole life has been marked by the 
strictest and most scrupulous integrity, and a moral sense of rare deli- 
cacy and refinement. In a green old age he enjoys the sincere respect of 
his townsmen and_ acquaintances, and is honored as a patriarch among 
them. 





COMLEV BROS. NEW YORK. 



ynj 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAlDIA. 249 

Childs, Henry Halsey, was born in 1783, the son of Dr. Timotliy 
Chllds, and grandson of Col. James Easton. He graduated at Williams 
College in 1802, manifesting at graduating qualities which continued to 
distinguish him through life. 

At that time all the faculty, and, with one exception, all the trustees 
were Federalists, and very earnest ones. Young Childs was quite as 
strenuously of the opposite party, and the commencement oration, which 
he submitted to the President for approval, was filled with the rankest 
Jeffersonian Democracy, little short of blasphemy in the judgment of the 
academic critics ; while his laudations of the new President, whom they 
regarded as an infidel in religion and a Jacobin in politics, were profuse. 
Of course this odious heresy was strictly interdicted. But on commence- 
ment day, when Childs mounted the stage, instead of harmless sentences 
which had been substituted and approved, out came the condemned 
heresies, trebled in force by the resentment of the young politician. 
"Childs! Childs !" exclaimed the astonished President; but those who 
knew the speaker in his latter days will readily believe no presiding officer 
could silence Harry Childs with words when he was bent upon talking. 
The orator went on to the end amid mingled applause and hisses ; for 
though his sympathizers were few on the platform they were many on the 
floor. 

We relate this incident simply as very characteristic of one who after- 
wards filled a marked place in the history of Pottsfield. A bold, self- 
reliant and impulsive man, it would have been strange had he not some- 
times erred. Energetic, enthusiastic and generally practical, thoroughly 
devoted to whatever he undertook, he was for the most part suc- 
cessful. 

Clyde, Milton A., was emphatically a self-made man, who began at 
the very foot of the ladder and worked his way to a handsome fortune by 
sheer unremitting energy and pluck. He was born in Windham, N. H., 
in 18 16, and early learned the stone-mason's trade. Coming to Massa- 
chusetts when the Western railroad was building in 1838, he worked for 
a time for Capt. Horace Stone, laying stone along the line of the road; 



2^0 BIOGRAPHICAL EXCYCLOP.^IDIA. 

and developing a rare business tact, he soon formed a partnership with 
Captain Stone, which was continued many years. The firm of Stone & 
Clyde took numerous small contracts for stone work on the road west of 
this city, and on its completion to Albany, Mr. Clyde came to Springfield 
and contracted tii fill the old meadow, east of ]\Iain street, where the old 
Boston & Albany freight yard and side tracks are located. On the com- 
pletion of this work, Stone & Clyde took a contract for grading on the 
Hartford & Springfield Railroad, and in 1843 contracted with Boody, 
Ross k Co. for the stone work along the line of the road. Mr. Clyde 
was afterward connected with IMr. Boody in various enterprises, among 
which was the luiikling of the Niagara Falls iS; Buftalo Railroad. In 
1853-4 Mr. Clyde built the old Hampshire ct Hampden Railroad (now 
a part of the New Haven ct Northampton) from Weslfield to Northamp- 
ton. Soon after ^Ir. Clytle became associated with Sidney Dillon, now 
President of the Union Pacific Railroad, under the name of Dillon, Clyde 
k Co., and from that time till the present this firm, of which INIr. Clyde 
was the working manager, has been noted as one of the greatest contract- 
ing concerns in the country. One of their earlier operations, a most 
profitable one, by the way, was the "great fill "' on the Lake Shore Rail- 
road between Cleveland, O., and Erie, Pa. Afteward they were engaged 
in similar operations on the New Jersey Central Railroad. The firm of 
Dillon, Clvde c*c Co. were also heavy contractors on the still unfinished 
portit)n of the Boston, Hartford & Krie Railroad, between Waterbury ami 
Fishkill, on which they were engaged for several years. About six years 
ago Mr. Clyde built the first Hartford reservoir, anil recently the firm o{ 
Dillon, Clyde & Co. built the Connecticut Valley Road from Hartford to 
Saybrook. They also built the Rockville branch of the Providence t*c 
Fishkill Road, and the Springfield i^- Proviilence Railroad from Providence 
to Parscag, R. 1., in which Mr. Clyde was director. 

But the great work of Mr. Clyde's life was the buikling of the famous 
undergrcauul railway at New York from Harlem bridge to the (irantl 
Central depot, on which Dillon, Clyde & Co. were engaged for two years, 
llie contract price for this great work \yas $5,300,000. The success of 



BTOGRA PlirC. t L EXC VCL OP. F.P/.l . 253;- 

this enterprise has been very largely due td Mr. Clyde's wonderful execu- 
tive ability, which has ever been the marked feature of his life. It was a 
common remark among contractors that ]\Tr. Clyde could do a job 
cheap)er than any other man in the United States. Ofan iron constitution, 
he spared neither himself nor his men in carrying out his enterprises, and 
it was his untiring devotion to business which caused his death, which 
occurred in January, 1875. He was Hrst prostratetl with congestion of 
the spine, and, partially recovering, began work regartllcss of his physician's 
advice, with fatal result. 

Mr. Clyde was married in 1848 to Miss Caroline Reed, of Fall River, 
who survives her husband. Two of their four children are now living. 
both daughters, and the eldest of them married Mr. James D. Gill, of 
the firm of Gill et Hayes. The deceased children were a son and 
daughter. The rugged, honest, determined spirit which Mr. C. possessed 
in a remarkable degree, joined to an exceptionably strong and healthful 
body, highly fitted him for success in. the vocation which he has pursued. 
Being almost entirely without educational advantages in his youth, his 
success in life has been due to the native integrity and force of character 
which characterized him during a life of almost unceasing activity, and he 
passes away — but yesterday in the full vigor of his strength — leaving a 
reputation in his calling secontl to scarcely any in the land. 

Coan, Henry Dewey, was born in Great Barrington, August 4th, 
1836, and is the son of Erastus D. Coan. He received a common school 
and academic education, and at the age of 20 went into the office of South 
Lee Manufacturing Company, Owen & Hurlbut, proprietors, as book- 
keeper and cashier, which position he occupied till the division of the 
property in i860, though he stayed in South Lee till the old business was 
settled up. He then went to Housatonic, where the Owen side of the 
late firm took the new mill, which commenced operations in 1859. Mr. 
Coan was book-keeper at die new mill till 1862, though he went there 
with a view to taking an interest. In 1862 the firm became an incorpo- 
rated company, at which time he became a stockholder, director and gen- 
eral manager. Mr. Coan owned one-third of stock, and Mr. ( )\ven 



254 BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPy^DIA. 

two-thirds. On the death of Mr. Edward H. Owen, in 1S64, the whole 
business responsibility and management was thrown into the hands of 
Mr. Coan, who has continued such management. Now in process of 
building, Mr. Coan has the largest mills in the United States. In 1868 
Mr. Coan opened in Housatonic, for the benefit of all citizens and opera- 
tives, a public library, which now contains 3,000 volumes. How this gift 
is continued to be appreciated may be inferred from the fact that generally 
the number of books drawn runs over 150 daily. Mr. Coan was mar- 
ried to IMiss Ellen A. Claflin, of Housatonic, March 6th, 1S63, and after- 
wards to Mrs. Sarah B. Owen, March 20th, 1867. 

His undaunted genius, prodigious enterprise and Inilliant success 
compel universal admiration, and although he has yet to reach the 
meridian of his career, Henry D. Coan is to-day one of the most powerful 
names in the commercial and manufacturing circles of Massachusetts. 

Cochran, Thomas. The subject of this sketch was born at Mercers- 
burg, Franklin County, Pa., April 12, 1832. After his father's death he 
moved to Harrisburg, and subsequently to Philadelphia. At the latter 
place he studied law and was admitted to the bar of Philadelphia, Decem- 
ber 2, 1854, and in which city he practiced his profession. The fund of 
knowledge which he drew from a thousand sources to strengthen and adorn 
it, and his suavity of manner soon won him hosts of friends and made him 
prominent in the community. It was not to be supposed that a man of Mr. 
Cochran's ability and popularity should not receive from the public some 
important position ; so, in 1861, he was elected a member of the House of 
Representatives, Session of 1862, and was re-elected for four succeeding 
terms — those of 1862-3-4 and 5. While in the House he exerted the 
utmost of his power to sustain the Government in its struggle for existence 
in securing the ratification]_by the State of an amendment to the Federal 
Constitution abolishing slavery. 

The appointment by the courts, of this gentleman, November, 1865, a 
member of the Board for the Revision of Taxes was a fortunate event for 
Philadelphia. When he entered, the securities of the city were selling for 
90 per cent. ; in less than one year his influence and management had 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOP.TWIA. 259 

forced them above par. In 1876 we find that he and his colleagues raised 
the value of property from $159,000,000 in 1865 to about $580,000,000 
in 1876 ; this alone stamped Mr. Cochran as a man of large experience, 
judgment and executive ability. In April, .1871, he delivered before the 
Social Science Association'^an essay on local taxation, which marked its 
author as one of pre-eminent ability. Neither is his fame local. He was a 
member and Vice-President of the Centennial Board of Finance, and, as 
such, Chairman of the Committee on Grounds, Plans and Building, super- 
vising personally the construction of all the buildings, together with the 
laying out of the grounds, supplying the same with water, gas, etc., before 
and throughout the I^xhibition. Mr. Cochran is also President of the 
Guarantee Trust and Safe Deposit Company, and director in many other 
moneyed institutions. He was elected to his present position to fill the 
[)Osition occupied by Mr. Welsh (late Minister to Phigland), as Chairman 
of the Sinking Fund Commission, who control the moneys and securities 
of the Sinking Fund of the City of Fhila(leli)hia. By an industry that has 
never wavered, by an integrity that is unimpeached, he has gained esteem 
and position. If the youth of the rising generation would go and do 
likewise, they would in time achieve what he has done. 

Conant, Chester Cook, st)n of Joel and Abigail Converse, was born 
at Lyme, N. H., April 30th, 1830, and is descended from Roger Conant, 
(me of the pilgrims, and a leading character in the earliest history of 
Salem. He is also a descendant of Susannah Winslow, daughter of 
John Winslow, the husband of Mary Chilton, said to have been the first 
person who landed on Plymouth Rock on the arrival of the May Floiver. 
The subject of this sketch was fitted for college at Thetford Academy, 
Vermont, and graduated at I.)'nn. He read law with Abijah Howard at 
Thetford, graduating at Albany, N. V., Law School in May, 1859. Com- 
menced practice at Greenfield, Mass., in October, 1859. In 1862 he 
held the office of Commissioner of Insolvency for Franklin County, 
Register of Probate from 1863 to October, 1870, when he was made 
judge of Probate of Insolvency, a life appointment. He also served a 
number of vears on the town School Committee, and has always rc- 
4 



26o BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA. 

mained in full and successful practice of the law. Was married to Miss 
Sarah Boardman, daughther of Rev. Dr.' Rodger Strong Howard, at 
Portland, Me., June 14, i860, the issue of which marriage has been two 
children. In 1859 he became the law partner of Judge David Aiken, 
and remained as such for about four years. 

The success of Chester Cook Conant's life is due mainly tti his own 
exertions and industry, and in all the stations he ever filled he has proven 
himself fully equal to their responsibilities and requirements. 

Crafts, Roswell P. Probably no name has been more full\- 
identified with the business interests and progress and advancement of 
Holyoke than that of Roswell P. Crafts. 

He was born in South Deerfield, September 17th, 1822, and was the 
sixth of a family of nine children of Chester and Martha Jewett Crafts. 
His father was an honest, industrious farmer, who died when the subject 
of this sketch was only five years old, who, with his sisters and brothers, 
all minors, and his mother, was left in very limited circumstances. Mr. 
Crafts attended school during the winter months at home till the age of 
thirteen, at which time he went to Island Parish, now part of Holyoke, 
and lived with an older brother, who was keeping hotel and store, help- 
ing him in the store, and attending school in winter months, till eighteen 
years of age. For the next four years he gave his whole time to his brother's 
business. When twenty-two he left his brother and moved to Springfield, 
engaging himself to one Cyrus Noyes, a livery man and stage owner, 
and for two years, in all kinds of weather, he drove stage, which must 
have proved rather laborious work for so young a man. In 1846 he re- 
turned to Island Parish, and after working for his brother a short time, 
became one of the firm in the mercantile department of the business, 
though he concluded, at the end of two 3ears, that Island Parish did not 
afford large enough field for one whose aim and ambition was to excel in 
life. He therefore sold his interest to his brother, and for two years en- 
gaged in the lumber business in Holyoke, and two years after went to 
Easthampton, bought the hotel, kept it for a few months, sold it, and re- 
turned to Holyoke, and engaged in the drug business with one L. A. B. 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA. 263 

Clark, with whom he continued for three years, when he sold out his in- 
terest and embarked in the grocer)- business, by himself, for though his 
relations with his partners were always pleasant, he wished to have man- 
agement and control of his own business. Soon after the last named 
enterprise he bought and ran the grist mill of the town, for six years, in 
connection with his other business. He continued in the mercantile 
business till 1873. In his business career, Mr. Crafts has been identified 
with many interests which have done much to make the City what it is 
to-day — among which may be mentioned the erection of a business block, 
and, in 1864, the building of what was then the Bemis Paper Company 
Mill, of which he was Treasurer an^ Agent till it was sold to the Union 
Paper Company, in 1870. 

In 1870 the building in which Mr. Crafts carried on his mercantile 
business was, in a few short hours, reduced to ashes. The debris was 
hardly through smoking when he commenced a new building in its place, 
which was finished and ready for occupancy the same year. In 1873 
Mr. Crafts built what was then, and is to-day, the finest residence of the 
City, and which not only aff'ords him a comfortable abode in which to 
spend the declining years of his life, but is an ornament and addition to 
Holyoke of which her citizens may well feel proud. 

Mr. Crafts, always wishing to do something to beautify and advance 
the City with which he has become so fully identified, in 1874 added an- 
other building, which, as long as it stands, and perhaps long after he has 
passed away, will be a landmark by which people will long think of him 
as one of the City's benefactors. 

Mr. Crafts has always tried to avoid political office, but, in 1873, ^^e 
people insisted on him representing them in the Legislature. 

In November, 1842, Mr. Crafts was married to Delia C. Jones, by 
whom they have had one son. The union was a most happy one, and 
the wife who was his helpmate in the days of his struggles now enjoys 
with him the results of their lifelong labor. He is a man of indomitable 
will and energy, and owes his success in life entirely to his own persever- 
ance. He commenced without a penny, and has not onl}' been a sue- 



264 BIOGRAPHICAL EXCYCLOP.T.DIA. 

cessful business man, but enjoys the full confidence and good will of all 
who know him. And we have no hesitanc}- in representini;- him as a 
truly self-made man, and one whose memory will live in the minds of 
the people. 

Gushing, Caleb, died at Newburyport, INIass. , January 2tl, 1879. 
He was unconscious during his last hours, and he had spoken during the 
day onlv when he required attencknce. Previous to last July, Mr. Gush- 
ing had enjoved excellent health for a man of his years, and he appeared 
as vigorous as ever. In Jul}- he had an attack of erysipelas, which broke 
him down, apparently, but he seemed to rally again, and had made his 
preparations for returning to Washington after the recess of Congress. 
He had also accepted an invitation to deli\er an oration at his home in 
this city, on the 2 2d of February, on the occasion of unveiling the new 
Washington ^Monument, lately presented to the city by Daniel I. Tenney, 
of New York. About two weeks ago he began to fail rapidly, but did 
not take his bed until yesterday. All day to-day he had been perfectly 
conscious, and, though he talked litde, he evidently realized his condition. 
His attending physician, Dr. Snow, had been with him since noon, and 
he was also attended by his half-brother, John N. Gushing ; his nephew, 
Lawrence B. Gushing, and his sister-in-law, Mrs. William Gushing, 
widow of another half-brother, in whose family he had lived since his 
return from Spain. At six o'clock the movement of the pulse was scarcely 
discernable, and his articulation was inautlible. About half-past ten 
o'clock a Herald correspondent was at the house of Mr. Gushing, and 
there learned from a member of the family that the dying man was uncon- 
scious and was growing weaker ever}- moment. His physician thought 
that the chances of his surviving till morning were unfavorable, and his 
death was looked for at an}- moment. 

]\Ir. Gushing was one of the keenest, brightest and subtlest intellects 
America ever produced. In the scales of mother-wit, political and literarj' 
talent, and genius for adapting himself to novel surroundings, he had no 
rival for a generation, and leaves no peer behind. In a permanent sense he 
w'as the oldest of American statesmen who witnessed the advent of the vear 



Q^u 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOP.-F.DIA. 267" 

1879, and few now living' can remember the time when Caleb dishing was not 
a great power behind the throne. Age could not wither nor custom stale 
his infinite variety. He was as much at home as a confidential counsel- 
lor during the successive Republican Administrations as he had been in 
the early days of Harrison and Tyler. A jurist, a diplomatist, a political 
manager, orator and oracle, a writer of rare powers of diction, a learned 
historical investigator, a traveler who comprehended at sight the situation 
of ever}' land he visited, he was also distinguished as a linguist, and might 
have made his fortune as a wit, or as a poet. His militar}' career added 
another to the many roles in which he appeared prominently before the 
public. 

The students of the new science of heredity will surely claim that much 
of the rare ability of Mr. Gushing was due to the sturdy New England 
stock from which he sprang on both sides. Descended from several of 
the earliest settlers of Scituate, Mass. , he was a near kinsman of several 
eminent jurists, one of whom — Thomas Gushing — was one of the fore- 
most patriots of Massachusetts, in 1775, and another — William Gushing — 
was one of the first Justices of the Supreme Gourt of the United States, 
and declined, in 1796, the post of Ghief Justice, tendered him by Wash- 
ington. The father of the late statesman, Gaptain John N. Gushing, 
was an opulent shipowner at Salisbury, near Newburyport, Es.sex Gounty, 
Mass., then a port enjoying a large commerce with the West Indies and 
other foreign lands, though now that traffic has been concentrated at 
Boston. 

Galeb Gushing was born at Salisbury, January 17, 1800; his 'years 
were consequently accurately numbered by those of the century. He was 
fitted for college at the Salisbury public school, and was sent to Harvard 
Gollege almost as soon as he entered his teens. His college career wr.s 
remarkable for the eager zest with which he grar^ped the details of eveiy 
science having any connection with history, which was always the subject 
of his chief interest. He won the honors of the salutatory oration, and 
was graduated in 1817, at the early age of seventeen years. He remained 
at Cambridge after graduating, preparing himself for a legal career ; but 



268 BIOGRAPHICAL ENCVCLOF.-EDIA- 

as four years must elapse before he could be admitted to the bar, his chi^f 
employment consisted in revelling in the historical treasures of the Har- 
vard Library. In 1819 he delivered a poem before the celebrated Phi 
Beta Kappa Society, and in the same year pronounced an oration " On 
the Durability of the Federal Union,'' on the occasion of taking the degree 
of Master of Arts. He had been from his youth an eager politician, and 
of course ranked himself among the Federalists. In 1 8 1 9 he was appointed 
tutor in mathematics and natural philosophy in Harvard College, and 
filled that post for two years. About the same time he began to con- 
tribute historical articles to every number of the Norih American Review, 
and even at the present day the student who refers to the pages of Poole's 
"Index to Periodical Literature" is astonished at the range of subjects 
on which he is referred to these early essays as an authority. Little was 
then known of the revolutions transpiring in Buenos Ayres, in Chili, 
Peru, Colombia, Central Am2rica, Mexico and Hxyti, but on all these 
subjects Tutor Cushing presented most accurate and valuable summaries, 
as he did a little later respecting the Greek revolution and other great 
political convulsions in Europe. Mr. Cushing has always been the 
stormy petrel of contemporaneous history — nothing attracted him so 
irresistibly as a revolution, no matter in what part of the v/orld it might 
occur. 

In 182 1 Mr. Cushing removed to Newburyport, which was thence- 
forth his home, and he was there admitted to the bar in 1822. His pro- 
fessional career was immediately successful, and he was soon regarded as 
one of the most promising young lawyers of the State. His legal prac- 
tice, however, did not prevent his devoting a portion of his time to the 
study of the musty archives of the town, and he printed, in 1825, a 
" History of Newburyport," which, though not remarkable for compre- 
hensiveness, was an extremely useful manual, and almost the pioneer in 
a branch of literature now enjoying great vogue in New England. In 
1824 Mr. Cushing married Miss Caroline Wilde, daughter of Judge 
Wilde, of Boston, an accomplished lady of literary and political tastes, 
who contributed not a little to the brilliant success of her husband's 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOP.^.DIA. 269 

career. About the same time he prepared a small manual of "The 
Practical Principles of Political Economy." 

Mr. Cushing's political career began in 1825, when he was elected to 
the lower branch of the Massachusetts Legislature. The year following 
he was a member of the State Senate. He filled both positions with 
abilitv, and to the satisfaction of his constituents. After his two years" 
service in the Legislature, he gave two years more to the exclusive practice 
of his profession, when, in 1829, he went to Europe on a tour of observa- 
tion and study. Although obtaining high professional success, and 
evincing great interest in the political movements of the day, Mr. C'ushing 
continued to pursue his literary studies with ardor, and his reputation as 
a writer and thinker grew apace with his career as a lawyer and politician. 
Upon his return from Europe he published his " Reminiscences of Spain " 
(1833), and also a "Review Historical and Political of the Late Revolu- 
tion in France" (1833). These works, which were each in two volumes, 
gave him considerable literary standing. In 1833, Mr. Gushing was 
again elected to the Massachusetts Legislature, and he was re-elected the 
following year. In 1835 he was elected to Congress, from the North 
Essex district, and he was three times re-elected, serving in the House of 
Representatives from 1835 to 1843. Politically, Mr. Gushing began his 
career as a Whig, and he continued to act with that party till after the 
death of President Harrison, when he cast his fortunes with those of John 
Tyler, and so severed all his old party relations. 

In Gongress Mr. Gushing showed all the great powers of thought and 
perseverance he had exhibited in the Ma.ssachusetts Legislature. He 
could make no decided mark as a statesman, however, for his party did not 
come into power till the assembling of the Twenty-seventh Gongress, and 
then he chose to go with Tyler and the minority. When Mr. Gushing 
entered Gongress, John Quincy Adams was among his colleagues, and two 
men who were afterward to be President had seats on the lloor — Franklin 
Pierce, of New Hampshire, and James K. Polk, of Tennessee (the latter 
being Speaker of the House). Glay, Webster, Galhoun, Silas Wright. 
[ames Buchanan, Thomas H. Benton, and others almost as eminent, were 



270 BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA. 

then in the Senate, and claimed almost the exclusive attention of the 
country. At no time during the history of the country was the Senate 
more disposed to rule than during this period, for, though the House was 
an able one, it was no match for the Senate. In the next Congress (the 
Twenty-fifth) Mr. Fillmore was added to the list of eminent names which 
form the record of the time, and it so happened that he was to close his 
Congressional career at the same time with Mr. Cushing — the one as the 
leader in the House in the Twenty-seventh Congress, and the other as 
leader of the Administration revolt. The Whigs had a majority in the 
Senate, and elected a Whig Speaker and Whig Clerk in the House with 
ease, but still there was no complete organization for many days. At last 
Mr. Cushing endeavored to push legislation, without committees and 
without rules, appealing to the majority, as the friends of the Administra- 
tion, to come to the rescue of the country and organize the House. The 
gist of his appeal was in these words:— "I appeal to the Whig party, to 
the friends of the Administration — and 1 recognize but one, and that is 
the Administration of John Tyler — that is the Administration, and I recog- 
nize no other in the United States at this time." At the very outset Mr. 
Clay submitted a programme of measures in the Senate for his party in 
opposition to the recommendations of the President's Message, and it was 
to this Mr. Cushing referred in saying that he recognized only the Ad- 
ministration of John Tyler. But Tyler was as anxious for a break with 
the Whig partv as the Whig party was desirous of breaking with the Presi- 
dent. When the rupture finally came, Cushing was the champion of the 
Administration, the Massachusetts Representative justifying the President 
in his veto of the National Bank bill, and appealing to the Whigs to sus- 
tain the Executive. But the Whig party went with Mr. Cla}- and the 
Whig Congress, and against Mr. Cushing and the "Whig President." 

The natural result of the break between the \Mng Congress and the 
President was the resignation of the President's ^\'hig Cabinet. In the 
reorganization of the Council of State, Mr Tyler nominated Mr. Cushing 
as Secretary of the Treasury, but the part Cushing had taken in the Presi- 
dent's behalf, and tlie extreme warmth of his champii>nship of the Ex- 



BIOGRAPmCAL ENCYCI.OPAiDIA. 27' . 

ecuuve made him s« distasteful to tlte Senate that the nomination was re- 
ect d His rejectton was the resttlt of mere party rancor_a mere fretful 
e al to give h m the reward of his .idelity to the President snnply because 
he had earned it. It is true there .-as in his conduct defectton to the 
Wh r mny but however the Whigs may have hated the treason, tt was 
2*pditical defection after all. There was no more cause W™ *- 
ment by the rejection of his nomination as Secretary of the Trea "ry than 
there would hive been for the .mpeachment of the Pres.den . tnte 

he had voted for every bill the President had vetoed, and defended thevetoes 
afterward ; but it ,s equally true that the enttre party vvould hav^^ done 

Ln to sn.art under the lash of the party whi,, ar.d Tyler was r.ot a Pres. 
dent to let a faithful champion go unrewarded. 

Accordin^^ly the mission to China, not yet agreed upon, ^^^t unde 

mimm 

should be appotnted without the -nsent o h Sen^ e ^n o ._^ 

*^:!''-rH^ewrL:ol'X7t':a-s dotlmtled, to appoint 



5 



272 BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA. 

by act of Congress, which specially provided that no Minister to China 
should be appointed without the consent of the Senate. The office was 
not a vacancy to be temporarily filled during the recess, but Mr. Tyler 
determined so to regard it. This was all the more necessary in the Presi- 
dent's eyes, since it was clear to him that if he waited till the assembling 
of the Twenty-eighth Congress to make the appointment, the nomination 
of Cushing would not be confirmed. Nothing more clearly shows the ex- 
treme partisanship of the time, for we might suppose that the Senate 
would have relented sufficiently to confirm him, if for no other reason, 
because Clay's friends might well rejoice at getting Tyler's champion out 
of the countr)-, and so far out of harm's way. Neither Tyler nor Cushing 
was disposed to make the test, and the latter sailed on his mission in 
May, 1843. ^^ embarked from Washington on the new steam frigate 
Missouri, and was accompanied by the frigate Brandxwinc, the sloop-of- 
war SL Louis and the brig Perry. It was a formidable squadron for a 
peace mission, and it met with delays and disasters of every kind. In 
coming up to Washington to take the Minister on board, iht Missouri r^.x\ 
on an oyster bank, and fifteen of her crew were drowned. She was 
ordered to gratify Mr. Cushings eyes with a sight of the coasts of the 
Mediterranean, and land him in the kingdom of the Pharaohs, but she 
took fire at Gibraltar, and was burned up. Thence Mr. Cushing was 
compelled to go to Bombay in British vessels, and when he reached that 
port the Brandywine alone was there, the St. Louis and the Perry being 
detained at the Cape of Good Hope. Making the best of circumstances, 
the Minister sailed in the frigate to the nearest port to Canton, where he 
spent a considerable time in futile efforts to reach Pekin w-ith the consent 
of the Chinese authorities. If he had arrived in the country with the 
squadron intact, his State papers show that he would certainly have sailed 
up the Pi-ho as nearly as possible to the doors of the imperial palace. 
As it was, a Commissioner was sent to sign a commercial treaty with him, 
and so there was no excuse for an American squadron entering the rivers 
of China, Mr, Cushing's treaty was ratified ; but the proceedings on his 



fi/OGRAPinCAL EA'CVCLOP.EDrA. 27 j 

nomination remain a Senatorial secret, the injunction of secrecy never 
having been removed. 

Upon Mr. Ciishing's return from the China mission he again settled 
in Newburyport, and soon resumed his peculiar functions of representing 
that ancient town in the Legislature. During the session of 1847 he be- 
came conspicuous as an advocate of the Mexican war — a policy to which 
the dominant party in the State was extremely hostile, on the ground that 
it was a war undertaken in behalf of slavery. This feeling was so strong 
that the Legislature refused to equip the New England regiment of volun- 
teers which had been raised for the cam[)aign, when Mr. Gushing came 
forward and borrowed the required money in State street, on his personal 
security. It was a graceful act, to say the least, and should have dis- 
armed the sarcasms and calumnies which followed it. It had the con- 
trary effect, however, of provoking them, especially as Mr. Gushing was 
made colonel of the regiment, and accompanied it to Mexico. One of 
the most remarkable satires in the English language — James Russell 
Lowell's " Biglow Papers " — was the result of the controversy. In this 
work Mr. Gushing is satirized without mercy. A specimen of the way in 
which Mr. Gushing was belabored is found in one of Mr. B. Sawin's let- 
ters, who, after discovering that the Mexicans " ain't much different from 
wut we be, " goes on to say : — 

Ah' here we air .iscrougin' 'em out o' their own dominions, 
Ashelterin' 'em, 'ez Caleb sez, under our eagle's pinions, 
Wich means to take a feller up jest by the slack o' 's trowsis 
An' walk him Spanish clean right out o' all his homes an' houses ; 
Wal, it doos seem a curus way, but then hooraw for Jackson I 
It must be right, for Caleb sez it's rcg'lar Anglo-Saxon. 

Golonel Gushing's regiment was attached to the army under General 
Taylor, and its commanding officer was soon afterwards made a brigadier 
general. While still in Mexico, General Gushing was nominated by the 
Democratic party for Governor of Massachusetts ; but he was, of course, 
defeated. It was during this canvass that Mr. Lowell's famous lines in 



274 BIOGRAPIlICAr. EXCYCLOP.EDIA. 

the " Biglow Papers," so often quoted by INIr, Cushing's enemies, first ap- 
peared in print. This is the stanza with the most gall in it : — 

General C. is a dreffle smart man ; 

He's ben on all sides that give places or pelf ; 
But consistency still wuz a part of his plan ; 

He's ben true to one party, an' that is himself. 
So John P. 
Robinson, he 
Sez he shall vote for General C. 

But, after all, General Cushing's only political oftence was in helping a 
Whig President to oppose a Whig Congress, and it is at least a tloubtftil 
question whether he separated ftom his party or his party ftom him. 

After the ^Mexican war, General Gushing again returned to Newbury- 
port to practice his profession, and with his usual fortune was sent as the 
representative of the town in the Legislature. This was in 1850, and the 
same year he was elected the first IMayor of the City of Newbur)-port, and 
re-elected in 1851. In 1852 he was appointed Judge of the Supreme 
Court of Massachusetts, and held the oftice till he was nominated as 
Attorney General in the Cabinet of General Pierce, in March, 1S53. ^^ 
held his place as a Cabinet officer till the accession of INIr. Buchanan to 
the Presidency in 1857, when, instead of retiring from public life, or 
merely resuming the practice of his profession, he again consented to 
represent Newburyport in the State Legislature, and in 1857, 185S and 
1859, he was for the seventh, eighth and ninth times a member of that 
body. But for all practical purposes Mr. Gushing resided in Washington 
after retiring from the Attorney Generalship, practising his profession, 
much of his business being in the nature of private adviser to the Govern- 
ment. His great acquirements and wide experience made him peculiarly 
useful in this respect, and he was freely consulted by every succeeding 
administration. Some idea of Mr. Cushing's acquirements may be formed 
of an anecdote that was told of him while he was Attorney General. At a 
diplomatic dinner in Washington, given by Mr. Bodisco, the Russian 
Minister, it was said he conversed in French with !\r. Sartiges, the French 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOP.-KDIA. 275 

Ambassador; in Spanish with Don Calderon, in German with Baron Von 
Gerolt, in Portuguese with De Figanere, and in the purest Itahan with 
the representative of the Two Sicilies. The good-natured correspondent 
to whom we owe this story also took care to inform us that " the distin- 
guished party were surprised and charmed, and some thought the Yankee 
polyglot could have added the Chinese had a representative of the Celes- 
tials been present." When we consider Mr. Cushing's remarkable experi- 
ences in China, in 1843-4, it seems likely enough that he had added 
Chinese to his other accomplishments. 

Mr. Cushing, always a pro-slavery man, naturally enough sympathized 
with the extreme faction of the Democratic party in the divided counsels 
of INIr. Buchanan's administration. He never was in accord with the 
popular sovereignty ideas which Mr. Douglas enunciated upon the 
Kansas-Nebraska issue, but rather chose to regard slavery as a national 
institution guaranteed by the Constitution, and normal to all the territory 
acquired by the United States. This made his selection as presiding officer 
in the Charleston Convention of i860 a great triumph for the extreme 
pro-slavery leaders, and called down upon him the execrations of the 
Northern and Douglas Democrats, who were no less determined not to 
yield to the demands of the South than the extreme men in the South 
were agreed not to submit to the compromising spirit of their brethren in 
the North, After the secession of the Breckinridge faction at Baltimore, 
Mr. Cushing presided over their deliberations as President of the regular 
Democratic National Convention. His sympathies and services, it was 
afterward supposed, would give him great weight with the South, and Mr. 
Buchanan sent him to Charleston in December, i860, as a confidential 
commissioner to the secessionists of South Carolina, to arrange the diffi- 
culties in regard to Fort Sumter, and to avert, if possible, the impending 
revolution ; but his mission was a failure. After the breaking out of thi- 
rebellion JNIr. Cushing gave his influence and services to the cause of the- 
Union, and proved himself as useful to Mr. Lincoln as he had been to 
Mr. Buchanan. 

In 1866 Mr. Cushing was appointed a Commissioner to revise and 



276 BIOGRAPHICAL EXCYCLOF.^DIA. 

codify the laws o'i the United States, and he gave much labor to this and 
other matters of a public nature. In 1S69 he went to Bogota, Colombia, 
and negotiated a treaty respecting the Darien Ship Canal. In 1S72 he 
was one c>f tlie American counsel before the Geneva arbitration for the 
settlement of the Alabama claims, and the famous • " American case," in- 
cluding the much mooted demand for consequential damages, was his 
work. His elaborate argument in French was one of the most remarkable 
speeches made during the sitting of the Commission. After his return 
from this mission, in 1S73, Mr. Cushing published a work called "The 
Treaty of Washington," in which he sharply criticised the chaf^cter and 
conduct of Sir Alexander Cockburn, the British member of the tnbunal, 
and he was sharply criticised in return by the English journals. Upon 
the assembling of the Forty-third Congress, in recognition of his sennces 
at Gene\"a, he was nominated by President Grant to succeed General 
Sickles as Minister to Spain, and, almost immediately after his confirma- 
tion, for Chief Justice of the United States. The latter nomination was 
made the occasion of an animated contest, and his confirmation was 
finally defeated by the production ot a private letter to Jefierson Da\is, 
written early in the war, in which Mr, Cushing seemed to regard the dis- 
solution of the Union as an accomplished fact. It was at his own request, 
however, that his name was withdrawn, but by the wish of the President 
he determined to accept the mission previously tendered, and he sailed 
from New York on his way to Spain, in March. 1S74. His mission in 
Spain lasted until January- 6, 1S77, and coincided with an interesting 
period of American relations with Spain. It fell to his lot to conduct the 
delicate correspondence with the Spanish Government respecting the 
J 7/-^/>//«j- outrage in Cuba. The dispatches of Mr. Cushing, published 
in the annual volumes of the " Diplomatic Correspondence." were always 
learned and instructive, and they formed decidedly the most entertaining 
portions of those volumes. Mr. Cushing was completely at home in dis- 
cussing the successive Spanish constitutions or in presenting historical 
summaries of American relations with Spain for the past half centurt", 
covered bv his own recollections. He was certainly the most popular 



BIOGRAFHICAL EXCVCLOP.'F.DU. 479 

Minister to the Spanish Court since the days of Washington Irving. He 
was a keen student of Spanish poHtics, and told many interesting anec- 
dotes of his experiences during the stormy days that preceded the pro- 
claiming of King Alfonso. The crowning act of his diplomatic stay in 
Madrid was the settlement of the Virginius indemnity dispute in the 
winter of 1S75-6. The feeling throughout Spain was ver>- bitter, and a 
less calm representative than 'Six. Cushing might have precipitated a war 
which, however popular at the time, would have retarded the commercial 
progress of the nation. Strange fatality that the poet who had satirized 
him so in 1S46 should have succeeded him at Madrid ! 

Since his return from Spain, in 1877. Mr. Cushing had resided chiefly 
in Massachusetts, and was nominated on the Butler ticket fl^r the post of 
Attorney Generxil, an honor which he declined on the nominal ground 
that he was not a citizen of ^htssachusetts. In fact, his legal residence 
for several years before his death was in Virginia, he having bought a 
tract of land in that State, near Alexandria, so that his nomination as 
Minister was credited to Virginia. — Xcic York HtralJ. 

Dana, Richard Henry, Sr., was bom at Cambridge, Mass., on the 
15th of November. 17S7— the son of Chief Justice Dana, the grandson of 
William Ellery. Richard Henry Dana came of a New England patrician 
and intellectual lineage that has given not a few other names of note to 
the world. He was known as a man of letters when Longfellow. Whit- 
tier, Holmes and Lowell were in their cradles, and had almost ceased to 
write before anv of our living writers published their earliest produc- 
tions. He was two months the senior of Byron, and seven years older 
than the lamented Br}ant. The students of the modern science of hered- 
ity may find in his ancesir}-. his descendants and his relatives, strong con- 
firmation of the doctrine that genius is transmitted in the blood. He was 
the fifth in descent from Richard Dana, who settled at Cambridge in 1640. 
His grandfluher. also named Richard (1699-1772), figures in the bio- 
graphical dictionaries as a jurist of eminence, who was prominent in the 
organization of resistance to the Stamp Act. His father, Fmncis. (1743- 
1811), was an associate o'l John Adams and Josiah Quincy in the Sitme 



28o RIOGRAPIIICA!. ENCYCLOPA'.DTA. 

prolonged agitation, was a delegate to the first Provincial Congress of 
Massachusetts and to the Continental Congress during the Revolution ; 
negotiated with Russia, in 1771, the first treaty with that empire, and was 
fifteen years Chief Justice of Massachusetts. Dana passed his early years 
at Newport, where his mind was imbued with many of the impressions 
and traditions which he has embalmed in his verse. He entered Harvard 
College in 1804, but did not complete his course. He was one of the 
participators in the noted rebellion against the faculty in 1807, and, like 
many of his associates, preferred leaving college to an acceptance of the 
terms of accommodation held out. Many years later, however, the de- 
gree of Bachelor of Arts was conferred upon him, dating from 1808. On 
leaving college, Mr. Dana returned to Newport, completed in private the 
collegiate course of studies, and read law in the office of his cousin, Fran- 
cis Dana Channing, the eldest brother of Dr. W. E. Channing. In 18 10 
he was admitted to the Boston bar, and in the folkjwing year to that of 
Baltimore, Md., where he spent some months in the office of Robert 
CjQodloe Harper. He settled in lioston as a lawyer in 181 1, and became 
in 1 8 14 a member of the noted "Anthology Club," comprising the lead- 
ing literary characters of the period. The North American Rtview origi- 
nated under the auspices of this club in 1815, and after the brief succes- 
sive editorships of William Tudor, Willard Phillips and Jared Sparks, it 
passed, in 181 1, under the management of Dana's cousin, the accom- 
plished critic, Edward Tyrrel Channing, for many years (1819-1851) Boyl- 
ston Professor of Rhetoric at Harvard. Channing associated Dana with 
himself in the editorship of the Revinv, and it was during this period that 
Bryant's poem, " Thanatopsis," was accepted and published. Dana 
withdrew from the magazine in 18 19, but two years later started a literary 
periodical called 7'he Idle Man, to which 'Washington Irving and Wash- 
ington Allston contributed. His writings in the Reviav were chiefly ofa 
critical character, and attracted no little attention and interest from their 
sound learning, their manliness of sentiment, and generally candid treat- 
ment of authors under review ; their clear anrl lucid statements, and prob- 
ably also from their somewhat Addisonian staleliness and mannerism of 



HiocRAriiicAi. /■:ncvclop.7-:/)/a. 281 

style ; since in those days Addison was still looked upon as one of the de- 
sirable "models" of style, on whose writin,u;s ayoung author wnuld do 
well to si)end days and nijijhts of study. 

The best known of these earlier essays of Mr. Dana is that u[)on 
" Hazlitt"s Lectures on the Kn<<lish Poets." He was one of the earliest, 
if not, indeed, the very first of the critics of those days on either side of 
the water' to enter strong, forcit)le and availin^,^ protest against the arro- 
gant, bitter and despotic sway which Jeffreys was then ex'ercising over the 
world of letters. He gave the most earnest and cordial greetings to the 
writings of Wordsworth, of Coleridge, of Crabbc. That his sympathies 
were not catholic enough to appreciate all that was good in Byron's verse, 
or the love for romantic valor and chivalrous daring, which was the inspi- 
ration of so much of Mrs. Hemans' work, is perhaps more to be regretted 
than wondered at. The Idle Man lived through one volume, and a single 
number of a second was issued in 1822. Hut it was then suspended ff)r 
want of sui)port. It gained during its existence the ap])roval and admir- 
ation of literary and scholarly men, but entirely failed to win the public 
appreciation. In it he continued the pulilicalion of his critical essays, 
and also wrote for it his novel "Tom Thornton," and several shorter 
stories. The whole pul)lication resembled the famous Sketch Bonk of 
Irving ; but, while it uncpiestionably possessed greater force of st}le and 
vigor of thought, it lacked the piquanc}' and pictures(|ueness, the delicate 
humor, the tenderness of sentiment which made the Sketch Book beloved 
of thousands. In 1821, also, Mr. Dana made his first public ai)i)earance 
as a poet, in " The Dying Raven," contributed to the Ntw York Rtview, 
then edited by Mr. Bryant. It was f(jllowed by " 'J'he Husband and 
Wife's Grave,"' " Thoughts on the Soul," " Changes of Home," and other 
poems, which won for themselves the a])prcciation and generous criticism 
of such men as Bryant, in America ; o( Christopher North and his com- 
])eers abroad. They are uniformly pervaded by thcjughtfulness, often by 
melanch(jly and pathos, and suggest a mind too original to be an imitator, 
but nevertheless strongly influenced by Wordsworth and by Crabbe ; and, 
like both of these, his favorite authors, he made the mistake of drawing 
6 



282 BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOrAiDIA. 

out his descri])tions and meditations into a minuteness and tediousness • 
which has deterred a later generation from keeping them in niemoiy. 
But in 1827 he issued "The Buccaneer," which took a hold upon the 
public mind that all his earlier works had failed to win. Its stor}- is 
gloomy, powerful and repulsi\e. It is devoted to the portrayal of the 
darker passions — of tierce and savage guilt, of remorse, fear, desjtair ; 
but it is told with a power, a pathos, a succession of graphic and vig- 
orous touches, a force of imagination, a stern severitv of diction which 
admirably suit the subject, which none of his earlier poems had 
even suggested. Whether you like the poem or not, it is one that asserts 
its power over the reader and holds his memory aftenvard, as the glitter- 
ing eye of the ancient mariner held the wedding guest, who must listen 
to his tale. In 1833 ]Mr. Dana issued a second volume of his prose and 
poetical wcirks, which included all of his paf)ers in The Idle Man, and a 
number of new poems. After that time he wrote but little. His later 
articles were contributed chiefly to the Literary and Theological Revieiv, 
and to the Spirit of the Pilgrims. In 1839-40 he delivered, in Boston, 
New York and Philadelphia, a series of ten lectures on Shakespeare, 
which were probably the most valuable and delightful of his literaiy and 
critical gifts to his age. Yet, strangel}' enough, they are the onl}- ones 
omitted in the two volumes issued in 1850, \yhich comprise all of his 
other works. Thev excited the keenest interest in intellectual circles, and 
did much to stimulate and direct the appreciative study of the great dram- 
atist. 

Mr. Dana began life as a Congregational ist, and at one time took an 
active part in the contro\ersy which, at the close of the first quarter of the 
century, was waged between the Trinitarian and the Unitarian elements in 
that communion. But after this he joined himself to the Episcopal 
Church, and for the long remainder of his life was one of its most earnest 
and consistent members. His life, as a whole, was, beyond question, 
one of the most tranquil and hap])y that has fallen to the lot of any of 
our literary or professional men. A habit of li\ing much in die open air, 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOF.I^DIA. 283 

Contracted in carl\- manhtiod while battling with delicate health, stayed 
with him througli life, and was probably one of the causes of prolonging 
his years into a serene, peaceful and vigorous old age. Whether in Bos- 
ton in the winter season, or at his summer home on the New Hampshire 
coast, he spent a considerable portion of his time out of doors. And in 
consequence he retained his interest in life and in all questions of human 
interest, his physical and mental faculties alike were prolongetl to a time 
long past the common age of man. The last representative of the earliest 
generation of our authors who gave power and distinction to our literature, 
and helped to \\in the respect of foreign critics and readers for their coun- 
try as well as for themselves, he long survived all those who shone in the 
same constellation with him. Bryant was but beginning to write when 
Dana had made, through the pages of the Xor/h American Reviav, his 
place in the world of letters. Longfellow and Whittier are of a younger 
generation than that in which Dana stood beside Irving, and to whom the 
only tribute now in our ])ower to give is the wreath of bay we hang above 
their tombs. 

In person Mr. Dana was an admirable representative of "a splendid 
old man." Erect in form, firm in step, with brain and stomach un- 
impaired ])y the dissipations incident to social life, he moved among 
a charming circle of literar)' friends, who lovingly regarded him as 
a Nestor. In stature he was rather below the medium height, and 
was slenderly built. His countenance was generally pale, but his 
features were regular, and when iightei,! up In' his singularly expressive 
eyes, he became handsome to a degree that would mark him as a distin- 
guished personage in any of the world's crowds. He wore a full beard 
and mustache, and although his hair was thin, he was by no means bald. 
Strange to say, his health began to imjirove after his fiftieth year. The 
"corner" had been turned, and regular habits and a moderate use of 
wine, coupled with the artistic and aesthetic surroundings which he was 
enabled to enjoy by reason of his wealth and associations, preserved the 
even balance between brain and brawn that resulted in a long and hon- 



284 BrOGRAPHICA}, F.XCYCr.Or.KDIA. 

orcd life. Ill's manners were arral)le to lliosc who belon,L!;cd to his own 
social L;ra(lc, l)ul lo others he was not ccmipanionalile, because lie never 
forgot his ancestn' or seenietl to lose siniil ol" the fact that he possessed an 
individualilN' ]ieculiarl\ his own. Mis wurldU- alVairs were arranned for 
many years, and it is not to be jtresunieil that the Reaper f(unui him un- 
preparetl in an\- wav for the stroke that cut him down. The life of ]\Ir. 
Dana was full of exiierience and memories that reach far back. lie died 
]\hirch, 1879. 

It is a curious circumstance, howe\er, that he ne\er saw I'^ni^dand or 
matle an ocean vo\ag"e. NiaL;ara and Canada, tm die one hand, and Phila- 
delphia on die other, constituted the principal limits o'i his wanderings. 
When Newi)ort became fashionable he turned to Xahant. His country 
home was at INhmchesler, N. II. The father of Mr. Dana owned nearh' 
the wliole of C'ambridgeiiort (near l>oston), and at his death dixidetl his 
j)ropert\ between his six chililren. Two genenitions ha\e been sujiported 
b\' it. llis wife died in 1S22. A sister kept house lor him afterwarti, 
and after hei' death an onlv sur\i\ing daughter became the head of his 
home. \\'illiam C'ullen Br\ant sta\ed at Mr. Dana's house in C'and)ritlge, 
wlien he was invitetl to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa jioem of the \ear, as a 
young man, antl it was while there he made important changes in 
" Tlianatojisi.s. " The friendship between the two was ne\er interruptetl 
except by death. 

Among others of literar\- fiends were the poet Percival, (leorge Tick- 
nor. Dr. William \\. C'hanning and Washington Allston. the artist. All 
of the i>ainter's works were left to him and his children, and they are now 
held b\- the iMiston Art Museum. It has been well said that, as if with a 
])rophetic instinct t)f Dana's life, Bryant, forty or iift\- years ago, wrote of 



A good old age released from care. 
Journeying, in long serenity, away, 
* ♦ * 'mid bowers and brooks, 
And dearer yet, tbe sunshine nf kind looks. 
And music of kind voices ever nigh. 



V2 



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^ 



\c 1 ntMnnw ,VmF\W YORK 



niOGRAPIIICAL F.XCYCLOI\KDTA. 289 

Dewey, Alonzo Nelson, was bom in Becket, Mass., October nth, 
1798, and was the youngest of four sons of Abel Dewey and Lydia 
Burcharci. He received a common school academic education at West- 
field, finished his education at the latter institution when ig years of age, 
when he returned home, assisting his father at his farm, but some time 
later his father having several farms in the vicinity of Becket, he gave 
each his sons charge of different farms, and before his death gave them 
all up to his sons. Alonzo remaining in Becket till 1836, when he 
sold out his entire property and mo\ed to Palmer. Three years later the 
B. & A. R. R. came through his farm there, and he built what was then 
known as the Railroad House, and was its proprietor three years. When 
he gave up the hotel, and commenced staging, having lines from Palmer 
to Stafford, Ware, Barry, and later, when the New London Railroad was 
opened, he had a line running to Southbridge and Broomfield. He re- 
mained staging more or less until 1856, when, having made a compe- 
tency, he retired from acdve business, 'giving most of his time to his farm. 
He was always interested in any developments for the benefit of the 
village, and was one of the most liberal supporters of the church of which 
he was a member, was of a retiring disposition, one who thought much of 
home, and his works were more in what he did than said. He was 
married ]\Iay 30th, 1820, to Miss Mary, daughter of Reuben Parks, of 
Russell, Mass., (she dying June 3d, 1871), and by whom he had ten 
children, three of whom still live — Mrs. j. K. Child, Mrs. A. M. Nel- 
son, (jalesburg. 111., and Charles E. Dewey, of Palmer. 

More than one-third of the present village stands on what was the 
farm of Mr, Dewey, so that he found his property of immense value be- 
fore he died. 

In 1856 he represented the people in the House of Representatives ; he 
was also a prominent Mason, and founder of the Thomas Lodge, F. and 
A, M., of Palmer, Mass, He died May 27, 1876. 

Dewey, Francis H., was born in Williamstown, Berkshire Co., 
Mass., July 2 1 St, 182 1. He descended from eminent legal stock; his 



290 BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLO'P.HDIA. 

father, Hon. Chas. A. Dewey, was for twenty years Judge of the Supreme • 
Judicial Court of Massachusetts ; his grandfather, Hon. Daniel Dewey, 
held the same office, and other near antecedents both in the paternal and 
maternal line had held judicial offices, his mother being the daughter of 
Judge Samuel Henshaw, of Northampton. After graduating at Williams 
College in the year 1840, Mr. Dewey studied law at Yale and Harvard 
law schools, completing his course at Worcester with Hon. Emoiy Wash- 
burn, afterward Judge antl Governor. He commenced practice in 1843, 
in partnership with Mr. Washburn, and after the appointment of the latter 
as Judge continued in a large and successful practice for many years. As 
a lawyer he was noted for his thoroughness in the preparation of his cases, 
his quick perception and success in jury trials. He was appointed Judge, 
his present position, in February, 1869. 

Judge Dewey's attention has not been confined to political matters 
alone, but he has been interested in many business enterprises, having 
been a director of various banks, railroads, manufacturing and insurance 
companies, and other business corporations. 

In politics, first a Whig, subsequently a Republican ; he was a member 
of the Massachusetts Senate in 1856 and 1869, in the former year Re- 
publican candidate for Presidency of Senate, and in both years Chairman 
of Judiciary Committee. Has for many years been a Trustee of Williams 
College, an office held by his ancestors for several generations ; from this 
institution he received the degree of LL.D. in 1874. He was for several 
years President of the Worcester County Horticultural Society ; is a Trus- 
tee of the Washburn Memorial Hosi)ital, of the Worcester Rural Ceme- 
terv, and a member of the American Antiquarian Society. Has been a 
member of both branches of the city government. Judge Dewey was 
married, Nov. 2nd, 1846, to Miss Frances A., only daughter of John 
Clarke, Esq., of Northampton, Mass., who died March 13, 185 1 ; he 
afterward married, April 26, 1853, Sarah B., only daughter of Hon. 
George A. Tafts, of Dalley, Mass. , by whom he had fi\e children, all 
living. 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA. 293" 

Dewey, Captain, was one of a family of four brothers and three 
sisters born in Becket. He was the last survivor of the family. His title 
belonged to him as captain of a company of dragoons in Berkshire 
County, and clung to him through life. Of his ten children, three only 
survive — Mrs. |. K. Child and Chas. Dewey, of Palmer, and Mrs. A. M. 
Nelson, of Galesburg, 111. He moved to Palmer from Becket, and 
bought the "King" farm in the eastern part of what is now the vil- 
lage of Palmer. At that time the only residents between Turneyville east 
of the village, and the Sedgwick corner, west of it, were John Watson, 
Capt. S. Parks, Capt. Jonathan Cooley and Col. Cyrus Knox. The farm 
purchased by Mr. Dewey lay directly in the track of the Boston & Albany 
Railroad, a fact which proved of considerable pecuniary advantage to him, 
though when it was decided to builil the road, the farmers, feeling that it 
would be a serious damage to their pros])ects, raised a sum of money and 
selected Captain Dewey to go to Providence and consult with the then 
celebrated lawyer. Burgess, as to any possible means of preventing its 
construction. The house Captain Dewey first occupied in Palmer stood 
east of the depot, on the north side of the street. This house was sub- 
sequently moved and became what is now the office and hallway of the 
Antique House ; this Captain Dewey then opened as a hotel. He did 
not long continue a landlortl, but soon built the house in which he was 
dwelling at the time of his death. In 1856 he was a member of the 
Legislature ; he has also held various minor offices. The establishment 
of stage lines from Palmer to Southbridge, and from Palmer to Stafford, 
Ct., were among his enterprises. The latter was discontinued at the 
opening of the New London & Northern Railroad. He also bought out 
the stage line from Palmer to Ware, and extended it. He was among 
the three or four original promoters of the Thomas Loilge of INIasons. 
Active, pushing and shrewtl, he had a good measure of success in acquir- 
ing property, and was one of the citizens most prominent in point of wealth. 
In every relation of life he was always thoroughly reliable, and one could 
always depend upon him. As a member of the Second Congregational 



294 BIOGRAnilCAL ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Parish his interest in its prosperity has always been marked. He gave 
the lot on which the church stands, and opened Church street, which 
leads to it. He was active and prominent in promoting the growth of 
the place, and in him Palmer lost one of its wealthiest citizens. 

Dickinson, G-eorge Richard, was born in Readsboro, Vt. , Dec. 
15, 1832, and was a son of Caleb Dickinson, a native of Amherst, Mass., 
who was a farmer by occupation. His minority was spent at home in the 
routine of attending school and farm lal)or, receiving, besides the advan- 
tages of the common school, a term at the Warnerville Seminar}- ; this com- 
pleted his early education from books, and his subsequent business career 
has fully demonstrated that the basis then laid, together with his inde- 
fatigable energy and sagacity in matters of business, has won for him an 
enviable financial position among the younger class of business men in 
Springfield. 

At the age of 2 1 jMr. Dickinson began business for himself, his first 
occupation being as a tin peddler from North Adams, Mass. He was 
subsequently engaged in the same business for four }-ears, going out fn mi 
Templeton, IMass. In the year 1857 he moved to Springfield, when he 
entered into a partnership with Henry Smith, one cif his late employees, in 
the manufacture of tin ware and dealers in paper stock, with a limited capi- 
tal of only $3,000, of which INIr. Dickinson was only able to furnish some 
$857. The business had so increased that in 1864 he established a branch 
manuflictory in New Haven, Conn., with his brother, Royal C. Dickinson, 
with the firm name of R. C. Dickinson & Co. In 1867 he bought out 
the interest of his partner in Springfield, paying therefor nearly ten times 
the amount of the original capital of both, and took into business relations 
with himself Mr. Alfred N. Mayo, who had been his clerk for some three 
years in the past. During the same year he also established a branch 
house at Norwich, Conn., with his brother Daniel H. Dickinson, and one 
at Waterbury, Conn., with his brother-in-law David B. Clark. Mr. Clark 
died in 1877, and the firm is now Dickinson & Grilley. 

In 1874 the firm of Dickinson k Mayo, in connection with R. C. 





COMLEYBROS LONOONi^NEWYORK. 




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COMLEY BROS.NEV/YORK. 



\5' 



BIOGKAPHICAL EXCYCLOP.IWM. 299 

Dickinson, purchased the Excelsior Paper INIill, of Holyoke, which tliey 
are now successfully earning on. 

1 he business of which Mr. Dickinson is the head has, from its small 
beginning and very small cajntal in 1857, reached a business of nearly a 
million dollars in 1878, doing business with nearly all of the neighbor- 
ing paper towns of the East, ami tlealing in all i)arts of the United 
States. 

I\Tr. Dickinson has been quite largely interested in the sale and pvir- 
chase of real estate in Springfield for years past. His life has been one ot 
activity. He is interested in the various enterprises of the city tending to 
its beauty and for the benefit of its citizens, and in iS77was elected a 
member of the City Council and placed upon the Finance Committee 
and Committee on City Property. In politics he is identified with the 
Republican party. 

Januarv ti, 1S59, he married Mary Jane, daughter of lulward Clark, 
of Petersham, Mass. By diis union he has one child living, Henuy S. 
Dickinson. His wife died in 1863. For his second wife he married, in 
1864, HattieA., daughter of Edwar^l Clark, then of Worcester, Mass., 
though formerly of Petersham. 

Dickinson, Philemon, President of die 'I'renton Banking Com- 
pany, which was chartered December 3, 1804, and has been renewed by 
Legislature from time to time. Isaac Smith was the first Presitlcnt, and 
during the Revolution was a colonel, and afterwards an Associate Justice 
of the Supreme Court of New Jersey. His successor was Col. Jonathan 
Rhea, also an officer in Uie Revolution, and for some time a clerk in die 
Supreme C(«urt of the State of New Jersey. I'he next President was John 
Beatty, also an officer and doctor in the Revolution. Thomas L. Woodruff 
next held die executive, and remained in office undl February 12, 1832. 
In 1832 Philemon Dickinson was elected to the position of President, a 
l)Osition lie still holds, dlie original cajiital of this comjiany was $178,000, 
and successively increased until now its capital is $500,000. It was the 
second incorjioraled bank in the State. P. Dickinson was born February 

7 



300 BTOGRAPHTCAL EXCYCI.OP.^.DIA. 

i6, 1S04, at Trenton. N. J. His gramlfathcr took up pmprieton- lands 
in the early davs, and was IMajor-General in command ot^ the INIilitia of 
the State of New Jersew and ser\ed throughout the war. The subject of 
this sketch graduated at Princeton College in 1822, antl is an alma mater 
of that institution, under the presidency of A. Green. He was admitted 
to the bar, but jiracticed for a short time only, when he assumed his pres- 
ent position. Tn 1834 he was married to Miss INIargaret C. Gobert, the 
issue of which has been six children, five of whom are living. At present 
he is one of the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund k^[ the State of 
New Jersey. In 1873 he was a member of the State Convention to revise 
the laws of the State, and to-day is the oldest bank President in the State. 
Fay, Mark, was born January 29, 1793, the son of Josiah Fay, of 
Southboro, INIass., and one of a family of nine. The education he re- 
ceivetl was of the most limited nature, antl at the age of eight he was put 
on a larm in ^hirlboro. Some few ycare later he was apprenticed to the 
cabinet maker's tratle in Sudbuiy, to one Ncnes, with whom he served his 
full time, or till twenty-one years of age. During this period eveiTthing 
did not '^o as smo >thly as might have been, as his employer was intem- 
perate, ana voung Fay liail man\- things to ktok after which should have 
been done by his employer. In 1814 he returned to ^Marlboro and car- 
ried on his trade in a small wa}" for about five or six years, when he 
bought a place on what is now Mechanic street, and kept a store in con- 
nection with the cabinet businesss. At the end o'i about six or seven 
years he sold out his business and tlevoted his time to agriculture, having 
while in business bought a farm. In 1833 he bought what was known as 
Deacon Ben Rice's farm, in compan}- with one W'eatherber ; soon after 
they divided it, Mr. Fay taking that part on which most of the town of 
Marlboro now stands, his portion including about fifty acres. This land 
was afterwards cut up and sold for building lots, ranging in price from one 
to twenty-five dollars a rod. About 1840, there being no banking focili- 
ties nearer than Lancaster, he commenced the banking business between 
Marlboro and that jtlace. taking (uer notes antl bills k^{ exchange and 




^^.^ ,^o^ 



DMuEV BROS LONOONS-NEW VORK. 



L 



SoJ'] 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA. 365 

bringing back the money. With one or two exceptions, he made this 
trip tor twenty-three years, or till 1863, never dunng that time meeting 
with anv loss or molestation, and never having the slightest fear. During 
this time he must have carried millions of money, for from 1850 to 1863 
there was a very large business done in the town. About 1850 he com- 
mencetl to find much to do in the dividing up of his farm and sale of lots. 
In 1853-55 the railroad was built from Marlboro to Hudson, and he was 
the principal instrument in its construction, furnishing a large portion of 
the funds. He was the originator of the Marlboro Savings Bank, which 
was started in i860, being the first of the six original chartered members, 
and was either President or Treasurer for ten years. Almost unaided, he 
obtained a charter for the National Bank in 1863, and was the largest 
stockholder and its Piesident until his death. He was not absent from a 
directors' meeting, with one exception, for more than twelve years. On 
December 4th, 18 17, he was married to Sophia, daughter of Jotham 
Brigham, of Marlboio, and he and his wife celebrated their golden wed- 
ding together in 1867. He was ever ready to assist any one to a home- 
stead, and during his life helped many to build their houses, and has been 
the direct means of building at least two hundred of the homes of the 
town. .\ man remarkable for his strong vital constitution, as well as for 
his pure, unostentatious and beneve)lent life and work, modest and retir- 
ing, he led a pure life, a true pattern for the rising generation. He died 
June 30th, 1876, leaving a widow, three sons and three daughters. His 
widow followed him May 2 2d, 1878. Mr. Fay died possessed of an inde- 
pendent fortune, the result of his life's labor and i)erseverance, and at the 
time of his death owned half the stock of the bank which he started. 

Ferguson, James C, was born in Bourbon County, Ky. , October 
5th, 18 10. Eight \ears later he mo\ed with his father. Dr. Clement 
Ferguson, to New Paris, Preble County, Ohio, where he resided until 
1826, at which time he removed to Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1831 he re- 
moved to Richmond, Indiana, and was engaged there in the jewelry busi- 
ness. He was marricnl, September 5th, 1837, to Clarissa, daughter ot 



3o6 BIOGRAPHICAI. F.XCYCI.Or.KDIA. 

Jeremy jNTaiisur, of Richnioml, Iiuliana. In April. 1 847, lie moved to 
Imlianapolis, Indiana, ami was there enj^nigetl in mercantile pursuits until 
1857, when he embarked in the pork -packing and commission business, 
in which he is still cn,L;-aL;-ed. Mr. Ferguson, as has been seen, was not 
born lo allluence, but began from a small commencement, ami owes 
alone to his ellorts and industry the position and fortune he has attained. 
What he has done can be done again if the same method be used for its 
accomplishment. 

Garfield, Harrison, was born in Lee, Berkshire I'ountv, IMass., 
June 27, 1810; the son of Silas (iarfield, a nali\e of Lee. 'I'he subject 
of this sketch receiveil a common schi>ol education, and livetl at home 
with his fuller until the age of 21, when for two wars he helped an aunt 
in the hotel business. Then he engageil for three years in the meat busi- 
ness with Thomas K. INI. Bradley. In 1836 he went into the paper man- 
ufacturing business with one Caleb Henlon, the firm being Benton c'v: 
Garlield, which continued for thirty years ami until the death of l\[r. 
Benton, in 1866. After his death the business was ccmlinueil with his 
sons one \ear, when they ilissolvetl, since which time he has conducted 
the paper business alone. 

During his business career he has held about all the town oll'ices ; 
has been President of the Lee Xational Hank since its existence — Presi- 
dent of the Lee National Ixuik lor iwenly-fi\e years, ami rejiresenletl the 
State Board of Agriculture for three years. In 1851 he represented his 
district in the Legislature, antl Southern Berkshire District in the Senate 
of 1877. He was President of the Housatonic .\gricultural Society for 
(M>e _\ear, besides doing in his lile what he coukl to lielj) his fellow-men, 
such as settling estates, i\;c. 

In November, 1832, he was married to ]Mar\- Norton, of West Spring- 
field, by whom he has had three children. His wife departed this life 
in October, 1853. 

He was married a second lime, in October, 1854, to Lucinda Free- 
man, of ]\Ionlerey, by whom he has had two children, both k^[ whom 
are living. His second wife tlieil in August, 1862. 





a<^c>^l^-^ — 



COMLEY BROS, NEW YORK . 



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:CvrL£Y BSOS LONDON* NEW YORK. 



B/ooA\{rmc.i/. FXCYCLor.-En/A. 311 

Was married the third lime, in January, 1864, to Mary S. Woodworth, 
of Xew Haven, Conn. This union lias bnuight no children, thoui::h 
his wife still lives to enjoy and share the domestic happiness o'i his home. 
Harrison Ciartield has been a stirring, practical man, and has been suc- 
cessful in all his pursuits from a rare ccuiibination of tact and abilitv 
which has ever proven the master o^ all obstacles. 

Goodnow, Edward A., I'resident of the First National Bank of 
Worcester, Massachusetts, was born at Princeton, Massachusetts, July 
1 6th, 1810. He is the son of Edward Goodnow, who followed the two 
occupations of former and tavern-keejier. Princeton is a town twelve 
miles from Worcester, Wachusett Mountain, almost the highest elevation 
in Massachusetts, being in the town. Under the shadow of this moun- 
tain our subject first saw the light, and is the third of a tamilv of eight 
children. He was occujned at home on the farm until he was twentv 
years old, and in this period had schooling for five or si.x; weeks in sum- 
mer, and the same in winter, in the common district school. Besides 
this, biief intervals were passed at schools of a higher grade, including 
three terms, of eleven weeks each, at the Hadley Academy. At twenty 
he came as clerk in a store in his native town, and after ten vears was ad- 
mitted as a partner. In connection with this store he was largelv en- 
gaged in the manufacture of palm-leaf hats : also doing a general market- 
ing business in country produce. For twt^i seasons he drove the team 
himself to Boston, forty miles distant, once a week, starting on the road 
at two o'clock in the morning, and driving nearly all next night. He 
was also, at this time, largely engaged in the manufacture of shoes. 
About 1835 or 1836 he bought out his partner, and gave himself ex- 
clusively to the business of the store. 

In 1847, at the age of thirty -seven, he sold o\\\. his business, and went 
to Shelbourne Falls, [Massachusetts, and took charge of the store con- 
nected with the large cutlery manufacturing establishment of Lamson, Good- 
now ct Co., the business of the store amounting to some sixty thousand 
dollars a year. After about a year he went to Eaton, Madison County, 



312 BIOGRAPHICAL EXCYCLOP.-EDIA. 

N. Y,, with the view of taking an interest in a cassimere manuEicturing 
establishment ; but having remained some time in the employ of the con- 
cern, did not ha\e sufficient confidence in the business to carry out his 
original purpose. 

He returned to Massachusetts, and, after a year or more, decided to 
locate in Worcester. Here he bought a retail stock of boots and shoes 
for about three thousand dollars, and commenced business. 

At the age (if fifty-five years he soUl out his business, having, in his 
estimation, acquired a competency, and passed about a year in travel. 
Three years previously he had purchased one of the finest residences then 
or now in the city of Worcester, which had been built and occupied by 
the Attorney-General of the Commonwealth for his own residence. After 
his return from his extended journey, Mr. Goodnow accepted the presi- 
dency of the First National Bank of Worcester, which he had been 
largely instrumental in bringing into existence. Unanimously elected at 
the outset, he has continued to be elected ever since, the present being 
the eighth year of his holding the office. Under his management the stock 
has greatly increased in value, and twelve per cent, is declared in divi- 
dends each year. The reser\e has gone up from sexenteen thousand 
dollars to one hundred and forty-one thousand 'v^xo. hundred dollars, on 
a capital of three hundred thousand dollars. 

Soon after going into banking, Mr. Goodnow also engaged in real 
estate operations, with a friend, and erected the first marble-front five- 
story block, and one of the most imposing in the city, called the First 
National Bank Building. He and the same friend also bought the 
theatre, and converted it into a fine block for business and other pur- 
poses, one of the courts being at the present time held in a part of the 
edifice. The two gentlemen hold real estate in the city to the value of 
about three hundred thousand dollars. ]Mr. Goodnow was also one of 
the earliest stockholders in the Turner's Falls Co., on the Connecticut 
River, and is largely interested in building up a manufacturing city 
there. His wealth-rs estimated at half a million of dollars. 



L^ 



15 





COMLEY BROS. NEW YORK. 



BIOGRAPnrCAL EXC YCLOP.EDTA. 



315 



He has always been thorough]}- energetic in business, and is strictly 
temperate in his habits. A man of strong talents and striking virtues, 
his life has been alike useful to himself and his fellow- men, and offers a 
profitable example to those seeking either a business c^r a moral guide. 

Griswold, Joseph, was born in Ruckland, Mass., August y, 1806. 

His fotlier was Ahajor Joseph Griswold, born in Weathersfield, Conn. 
The Major was at times a member of both branches of the INIassachusctts 
Legislature. 

Joseph Griswold, the subject of this sketch, was the fouilh child of a 
famih' of fourteen children. 

He attended common school, and also a select school, several terms, 
in Buckland, in his youth. 

At the age of sixteen his dither gave him his lime, and he commenced 
to educate and support himself . He attendetl school some three \ears at 
'•Sanderson Academy," in Ashfield, JMass. 

^lary Lyon, founder of Holyoke Seminarv, was one of his school- 
mates there. 

During his school years he worked at his trade of cariK'Uter. joiner and 
cabinetmaker — trades learned of his father — and also kept school, alter- 
nating between these as his circumstances required. 

Studied Latin with Judge Payne, of Ashfield, j)reparator\- to stud\ing 
medicine. 

At about twenty years of age, visited relatives in Xew York State, antl 
worked at his trade in Utica, Rochester, Buffalo and Detroit. While at 
Rochester he first saw window-sashes, blinds and doors, made b\' i)o\\er. 
It was then he abandoned the idea of jiracticing medicine. 

He returned East and began the manufacture (^{ sashes, doors and 
blinds, at Ashfield, where he taught school several terms, also at Colerain. 

At Colerain, while teaching, he became acquainted with Miss Louisa 
W. Denison, of Stonington, Conn., who was stopping there with an aunt. 
They were married at Stonington, Conn., November 23, 1829. 

About this time he removed his business from Ashland to Buckland, 
and also started a shop with his brother in " Erving Grant," Mass. 



3i6 BIOGKAPIIICAL ENCYCLOPMDIA. 

In 1830 he built a house and shop at Colerain at the site of the pres- 
ent village of Griswoldville, and continued the business of manufacturer 
of sashes, doors, etc. 

In 1 83 1 he added to his business the making of wcioden "lather 
boxes. " 

During these }ears, ]Mr. Griswold wcirked fourteen to sixteen hours a 
day, and Mrs. Griswold, in additit)n to the duties of her large family, as- 
sisting in varnishing and putting up these boxes for the trade. 

Soon after he added to his business the making ol gimlets and augers. 

In 1832 he built a cotton mill of sixteen (16) looms ; during the 
same year he added sixteen looms more, ]\Irs. Griswold making the har- 
nesses and aprons for the looms. The mill, with its contents, was destroyed 
by fire in 1851. 

In 1835 he built a brick ciitton mill of one hundred and fort}'-four 
looms, which was burned in 1856. 

In the general crash of 1837, Mr. Gris\\old was carried down with the 
many, and out of this was formed the present Griswoldville Manufactur- 
ing Comi)an\'. ]Mr. Griswold in after years bought out the other stock- 
holders. 

In 1846 he opened a commission house in New York. 

The .same \ear he purchased and fitted up a model farm in Stonington, 
Conn., where his family resided for six years, he carrying on his manu- 
factor\- at the same time, and also connecting himself with shipping and 
whaling interests. 

In 1852 he gave up the commission busine.ss in New York and moved 
back to Colerain, and rebuilt the mill burned. 

In 1855 he engaged largely in lands and farming, in addition to his 
other busine.ss. 

In 1856 he rebuilt his second mill (burned), antl started it in 1858 
with 210 looms. 

During the year 1865 he took into the corporation three of his sons, 
and Iniilt his Willis mill, doubling his previous manufacturing business. 



BIOGKAIIIICAL EACYCLOr^-ED/A. 317 

He has had thirteen children — six now living. Of these, Ethan U. 
Griswold, of New York, represents the house there. 

Joseph Griswold, jr., and Lorenzo Griswold, reside at Griswoldville, 
and carry on the business with their father there. 

\\'a}-ne Griswold is connected with the Montreal Slar, of Montreal, 
Canada. 

INIaria Louise married Dr. A. C. Deane, of Greenfield, Mass. 

Myra married W. W. Ballard, Esq, of Circleville, Ohio. 

]\L-. Griswold never had any interest for office or political honors, and 
alwa}-s declined them when suggested by his friends. 

He was, however, a great reader, and had a wonderful memor\-, and 
in his younger days took the leading magazines of the day. 

In later life he confined his reading to the newspapers — alwa}-s read- 
ing three or four of the leading dailies. No item escaped his attention; 
he has occasionally through life contributed an article for j)rint. He is 
quick in his decisions anil has a wontlerfull}- accurate judgment of men 
and human nature. 

^L". (iriswold may be said to be pre-eminently a man of wtjrk. 

In all his varied and extended interests, he has always had a constant 
and personal supervision, extending to the most minute detail, overseeing 
himself the cutting of the t;ml)er on his farms^ the sawing in his mills, 
the making and laying of the brick, and the construction of much of the 
machinerv ; seldom taking a day of leisure for himself — the only notable 
instance being at the close of the war ; as his interests were so closely 
connected with the cotton business of the South, and being desirous of 
judging for himself what the effect of the emancipation of the negro would 
have upon the production of cotton, he spent the winter with his wife 
traveling through the various slave States, and became satisfied that the 
change would be for the better, and that the negro would work and raise 
cotton if the politicians would let him alone. 

Immediately on his return he resumed his constant round o^ toil, 
and now, hale and heart)-, in his seventy-second year, is just fmishing oft' 



3i8 BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA. 

at Turner's Falls a substantial mill, with accompaming tenements, that is 
to double the capacity of his {)resent manufacturing business. 

Guarantee Trust & Safe Deposit Company, Philadelphia. 

— The possession of property must ever be accompanied by the desire for 
its security and use during the lifetime of the possessors, and for some 
assurance that it will be properly disposed of thereafter in accordance 
with their wishes. Banks assume the custod}- of that most evanescent of 
all property — money. Insurance companies agree to indemnify from loss 
by fire and shipwreck. Individuals undertake the settlement of estates. 
But these have all ])r(iven inadequate to the full requirements of the 
times. With the steady accumulation of })roperty and increase in the 
number of its possessors, the need cif better protection fjr the untold 
millions of portable wealth, and of greater security for the proper settle- 
ment of estates, has been demonstrated. 

Banks decline to become resf)onsible for the safe keeping of property 
other than mone}', and it has been found that man}' of them are so situ- 
ated as to be unable to afford entire protection against the skill of the 
modern burglar, whose \ocation has become a science. Ordinar\- insur- 
ance companies ilo not protect, but merely indemnif}- upon certain con- 
ditions, limiting their risks, and refusing all others. They offer no indem- 
nit}' against loss through the depredations of thie\es and robbers. 

Individuals, when a{)p( tinted to settle estate.s, may and often do the 
before completing their duties, and sometimes resign, or otherwise fail in 
the performance of their trusts. 

Within a few years there has sprung up a class of institutions intended 
to meet the requirements of holders of property, for its better protection 
during life, and its more certain and speedy transmission to heirs at 
death. 

The Trust and Safe Deposit Companies not onl}- recei\'e money upon 
deposit like banks, but also securities and other articles of value, and 
rent safes in vaults absolutely burglar-proof. They not only offer protec- 
tion against fire, but also against burglars, returning the identical articles 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA. 32.1 

placed in thjir custoJy. In making a business of the settlement of es- 
tates, or in acting in any other capacity as Trustees, they acquire an ex- 
perience and possess facilities for the careful, economical and certain 
management of estates and trusts that must commend them to the serious 
consideration of thoughtful h.ilders of property. Being corporations, 
they never die. 

These institutions, as organized in this City, have been projected and 
managed chiefly by persons identified with banks and insurance com- 
panies, who, bv their peculiar experience and training, are well qualified 
to successfully administer their afiairs. It was foreseen that institutions 
with such large powers for usefulness were destined to assume positions 
of great importance in this community, and that their success would be 
largely due to good location, atlequate charter privileges, high character 
of management, sufficiency of capital, and strength of buildings and 
vaults. It was upon this broad, liberal and comprehensive plan that the 
organization of the Guarantee Trust and Safe Deposit Company was con- 
ceived over eight }'ears ago. Location was deemed of vital importance 
to its success, and so valuable did the present site of the new building of 
the Company appear, that three years of persistent effort were spent in 
securing the several, parcels of ground composing it. Of ample dimen- 
sions, at the heart of the monetary centre of the City, surrounded on all 
sides by streets and ^^•ide areas ; a building erected upon it will always 
stand separate and apart from all other buildings, making it fire and 
burglar proof to a degree otherwise unattainable ; whilst the peculiarity of 
the foundation, which is a stratum of gravel, perfectl}- dry upon the sur- 
face, but with water in great abundance at every point a few feet below, 
renders any undermining by burglars impossible. It may be safely a.s- 
sumed that, as a location for the business intended, the site is unequaled 
in this Cit}-, and its possession amply repays for the time and labor spent 
in obtaining it. 

During the time thus occupied in securing the building site, great 
care and pains were taken in procuring a proper and liberal charter from 



322 BIOGRAPHICAL EKCYCLOP.^DIA. 

the State. Two were laid aside as defective. After much diflficultv, the 
present act of incorporation was obtained, which embodies all the pow- 
ers, privileges and restrictions found necessan' and desirable b}' the most 
successful institutions already established. Under it authority is granted 
to receive and hold, on deposit and in trust, estate, real and personal, in- 
cluding the notes, bonds, obligations and accounts of States and of indi- 
viduals, and of companies and corporations, and the same to purchase, 
collect, adjust and settle, and also to sell and dispose thereof in any mar- 
ket in the United States or elsewhere, without proceeding in law or 
equity, and for such price and upon such terms as may be agreed on be- 
tween contracting parties ; and to receive upon deposit for safe keeping, 
jewelry, plate, stocks, bonds and valuable property of every kind ; and 
to act as Receiver, assignee, guardian, executor, administrator or other 
Trustee, and to receive for safe keeping any bonds, stocks, securities or 
other valuables belonging to others, from any executor, administrator, 
guardian or other Trustee, either by order of any court or otherwise ; 
and also to act as agent for the purpose of issuing or countersigning any 
stocks, bonds or other obligation of any corporation, association, muni- 
cipality. State or public authority, and to receive and nianage any sinking 
fund therefor, on such terms as may be agreed upon ; and upon being 
properly indemnified therefor, to become sole surety in any case where, 
by law, one or more sureties may be required for the faithful performance 
of any trust or office. 

After the building site and charter had been secured, and $100,000 
of capital stock subscribed, an organization was efilected and a Board of 
Directors chosen November 8, 1872. Subscriptions were then opened 
for the full amount of capital, and in a very short time applications for 
stock were received largely in excess of the $[,000,000 of capital pro- 
vided for in the charter. 

The Company opened a temporary office February i, 1873, "^"^ the 
southeast corner of Fifth and Chestnut streets, for the transaction of such 
business as might offer before the completion of its new building, though 



BlOGRAPinCAL ENC'YCLOP.^.DIA. 323 

with so few facilities that tlie utmost that could be expected from it was 
the introduction of the Company into notice and the maintenance of the 
charter, which would otherwise have been forfeited. Upon the opening 
of the office, $500,000 of the capital was called in, and paid up during 
the year. In September last the second $500,000 was called in, part of 
which has been paid, and the remainder will be due within the current 
year. 

l"he Company became possessed of the principal portion of its 
ground May i, 1873, when plans for the building were being perfected 
by the architects, INIessrs. Furness & Hewitt. Over two months were 
spent in clearing the site Irom old buildings and in securing the remain- 
der of the ground ; and it was not until July 21st that a contract was 
made with Mr. Oliver Bradin for the erection of the new building within 
the ensuing eighteen months. This length of time was deemed neces- 
sary for the proper construction of a building of such magnitude, in- 
tentled to be thoroughly fire and burglar-proof, and of great strength. 
The "-reat fires of Chicago and Boston clearly demonstrated that no build- 
ing materials resist fire so \yell as good hard brick, for the beauty and 
excellence of which Philadelphia is justly famous. 

The problem given to the architects was to design a building in brick 
that would not present to the eye the blank and unattractive appearance 
of a market house or factijry. l"he result has l)een a handsome building, 
which attracts unusual attention Irom its unique api)earance and bold 
departure from the prevailing architecture of our i)ublic buildings, being 
a pleasing modification of the Venetian style. It has a front of 57 feet 
on Chestnut street and 198 feet on both Hudson street and Carpenters' 
court. 

The foundations are of stone, and from 8 to 12 feet deep and 4 feet 
thick. The basement walls are 3 feet thick, of hard brick, laid in 
cement. The walls above the main floor are 2 feet 3 inches thick, inte- 
rior walls and partitions being all of brick, and from 2 feet 3 inches to i 
foot 10 inches thick. As evidence of the firmness of the foundation and 



324 BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOP.'EDIA. 

strength of the walls, it may be mentioned that not a single crack or 
other sign of settling has appeared in any part of the building. The 
basement floors are laid in concrete, covered with lithogen pavement and 
tile, and the walls are finished in pressed brick, with struck joints. All 
the other floors are of iron beams and brick arches, and laid with con- 
crete and encaustic tile. The walls are ornamented with stone and cov- 
ered with tile, being the first extensive piece of work of the kind yet at- 
tempted in this City. All the roofs are of iron, covered with slate, fas- 
tened with copper wire. There is not a particle of lath and plaster, nor 
a wooden joist or floor in the building. The doors and window frames 
are of oak. 

The exterior is of the finest pressed brick, upon all four sides of the 
building, laid in black cement, ornamented with light Ohio stone, pol- 
ished Scotch granite, and encaustic tiles in bright colors. The prominent 
features of the front elevation are two square towers, one at each corner, 
which are seventy feet high, with crestings of carved stone, and roofs of 
iron and slate, surmounted with an ornamental iron railing. There is a 
clock in one tower, with the dial facing Chestnut street ; and upon the 
other is a vane, which indicates the direction of the wind upon a dial 
corresponding with that of the clock. Between the towers is the main 
entrance, consisting ot an inner and outer vestibule ; the latter covered 
with a stone porch, supported on polished Scotch granite columns and 
bases. The tower windows have similar columns, of smaller size, in the 
jambs. All windows contain plate glass ; and the lower ones are guarded 
by heavy iron gratings, of design in keeping with the architecture of the 
building. 

The main entrance through the vestibules is by means of two door- 
ways, each five feet wide, with heavy, solid oak and bronze doors, open- 
ing into a room 52 feet 6 inches square, with floor and walls covered with 
encaustic tile. The ceiling is made entirely of iron, somewhat in the 
lorm of a dome ; and is painted light blue. Above this rises the roof of 
iron and slate. On the right side of this room are the counters and desks 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOP.'EDIA. 325 

of the National Bank of the Republic, of solid walnut, with panels of 
bronze below and plate glass above, of a design harmonizing with the 
interior finish of the building. In front of these is a room in the tower, 
1 6 feet square, fitted up for the officers of the Bank. Facing the counters 
of the Bank, on the opposite side of the room, are similar counters, with 
desks and officers' rooms of the Fame Fire Insurance Company. Be- 
tween these counters is an open space 20 feet wide, to the rear of the 
room, where it enters a passage 22 feet long and 10 feet wide. Upon the 
right of this passage is the President's room, 20 feet square ; and on the 
left a hall and iron stairway, leading to a directors' room and store room 
above, and to the basement below; also opening, into Hudson street. 
The passage at the rear end opens into the large room occupied by the 
Guarantee Trust and Safe Deposit Company,— the counterpart in size 
and finish of the Banking and Insurance Room. It is fitted up and 
arranged for the business ol the Company, with desks and counters on the 
right side, for the Cash and Trust Department ; while on the left is the 
Safe Deposit Department, with the counter for the reception of securities, 
and the tables, screens, and other conveniences for the use ot safe- 
renters and depositors, with a separate apartment for ladies. 

From the rear of this room is the entrance, through iron doors, to the 
Treasuiy— a room 28^ feet wide, 49 feet long, and 40 feet high, contain- 
ing the great fire and burglar-proof vaults of the Company. On the 
left of the entrance is the desk of the Superintendent of Vaults. From 
this floor, the basement, the second floor of the treasury, and the top of 
the vaults, are reached by iron stairways. The second story of the trea- 
sury is designed for a meeting room for corporations, committees, trus- 
tees, and others using the vaults of the Company, and requiring a private 
room for the examination of securities. Twelve feet in front of the vaults 
is a wrought iron grille, extending from the basement to the ceiling, and 
from which the vaults, six in number, unobstructed by any floor, can all 
be seen at a single glance, being arranged in three stories, two on each 
story, reached by galleries and iron stairways. They are constructed of 



326 BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA. 

interior walls of hardened iron and steel plates, zy^ inches thick on all 
sides, top and bottom, and i}^ inches thick at all corners, with vestibules 
of the same, having outer and inner doors of solid welded iron and hard- 
ened steel j)lates, 4 inches thick clear of bolt work ; each door being pro- 
tected by two combination locks of the finest character, and arranged by 
separate combinations, so that not less than two persons must always be 
present in order to open or close both doors of any one of the vaults. 
The iron and steel work of the vaults is enclosed on all sides in massive 
walls of dressed granite blocks, each 6 to 8 feet long, 2 feet high and 2 
feet thick, the front being four inches thicker ; all laid in cement, and 
securely clamped and doweled together. The covers o\er the top are also 
two feet thick, in nine immense blocks of granite, each weighing from 8 
to 13 tons. A space of 2 to 3 inches between the steel and granite walls 
is filled with hydraulic cement, rendering the vaults perfectly dry. The 
whole rests upon solid granite foundations extending about 20 feet be- 
low the level of Carpenter's Court, the entire excavations being filled in 
solid from side to side with stones of great size and weight laid by 
machinery in cement. Three pumps were kept in constant operation to 
free the excavation from water whilst the lower courses of stone were 
being laid, and it would therefore be impossible ever to undermine these 
vaults. The solid brick walls of the building, unbroken by door or win- 
dow, surround the vaults and extend 10 feet above them, with a ceiling of 
iron beams and brick arches, and roof of iron and slate. 

About 1,700 tons of granite and 400,000 pounds of iron and steel 
were used in the construction of these vaults. Everything that experience 
and ingenuity could suggest has been done, and no expense spared in 
making them absolutely fire and burglar-proof; and it is believed that 
they are in these respects unequaled in this country. 

In their interior dimensions the vaults are each 18 feet deep, 10 feet 
wide, and 7^2 to 8 feet high. They have a capacity for 6,000 iron safes, 
or safe deposit boxes, of various sizes. Two thousand safes have been 
put in for the immediate use of renters, and more will be added as re- 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCI.Or.-F.DTA. 329 

quired. They are fitted with combination and permutation locks of the 
best construction known. Communicating with. the treasury in the base- 
ment, is a Plate Vault, 39 by 48 feet, fitted up with iron shelving for the 
reception of boxes of plate, trunks, and other bulky packages left for safe 
keeping under guarantee. Adjoining this vault on the east, and com- 
municating also with the treasury, is a room 12 by 48 feet, for safe- 
renters, with tables for their use. Beyond this room, and communicating 
with the stairway to Hudson street, are an office, and a room containing 
a hydraulic lift for the reception and delivery of heavy packages. Beyond 
this — entirely cut off from the vaults and treasury — is the front basement, 
containing Dining Rooms, Tantry and Kitchen, Toilet, Cloak and Store 
Rooms. Under the front pavement are Coal Vaults, and a Steam-Heat- 
ing Apparatus for warming the entire building. 

The doors and windows throughout the building are connected with 
Electric Burglar Alarms. There is electrical communication with the 
Central Police Station and the Western Union Telegraph Office. There 
is also an Electric Recording Clock, having communications with stations 
around the vaults and throughout the building, for test'ng the vigilance 
of trained and armed private watchmen employed to guard the building 
day and night. The building is so illuminated at night that the vaults 
may be seen from the street. 

It would seem impossible for the most inventive genius to devise more 
effectual means for guarding securities and valuables from fire and thieves 
than are furnished in the building, vaults, and police regulations of this 
Company. 

Harrison, A., hniianapolis, a man who, from a humble petition 
and by his own efforts has risen to affluence and social position, and 
through all the events of a checkered life has preserved his integrity unim- 
peached, well deserves the pen of the historian and to be held up as a 
model to posterity. A. Harrison was born at Greenville, Tenn., Decem- 
ber 18th, 1802, and was the son of Edward and Maiy Harrison. His 
father moved t(j Indiana when the subject of this sketch was only ten 

9 



330 BIOGRAPHICAL EiYCVCLOP.-EDlA. 

years old, ami was engaged in a mercantile business at Brookville, wliere 
his circumstances became very much reduced, so much so that he could 
not afford to educate his children as was his wish. This necessitated the 
subject of this sketch to seek his own livelihood at an earlv age. This he 
did, and when twelve years old he was supporting himself in clothes by 
going from store to store, in his nati\-e town, sawing and splitting wood. 
His industry soon attracted the attention of a merchant in the town, who 
went to his fither and offered to take him as an apprentice until of age ; 
this was to inckule two years' schooling. His father gladly accepted, and 
bound him for se\en \ears, during which he employed his time faithfully, 
receiving at its expiration an honorable discharge. He, however, contin- 
ued in this same employ c>ne year longer, for which he received as remun- 
eration the sum of $120. After this he entered the employ of another 
mercantile firm, from whom he received $200 for his first year's services. 
They, recognizing in him a trusted employee, offered, after another year's 
ser\ices, to make him a full partner, the}' to furnish all the capital, and 
the subject of this sketch to have full charge of the business. The propo- 
sition was accepted, and INIr. Harrison remained in that position seven 
years, when he sold out his entire interest and moved to Laporte county, 
where he bought a new stock of goods, and again engaged in general 
mercantile business, including the buying and selling of wheat ; in fact, 
he shipped the first cargo of wheat from Michigan City to Buffalo. In 
1837 the Legislature passed the l)ill for internal improvements in the 
building of canals and railroads, and INIr. H. immediately moved to In- 
dianapoli-s, where he engagetl in business with a INIr. Porter, the firm style 
being Harrison & Porter, though he carried on his business at La Porte 
three }-ears after. The Indianapolis firm continued six years successfully, 
when Mr. Porter died. The business was, however, continued with the 
widow of his late partner for several }-ears, or until she remarried, when 
the business was closed up and a settlement made with Mrs. Porter. 
After this Mr. Harrison associated with him as partner his son-in-law, Mr. 
J. C. S. Harrison, and they together continued in the mercantile business 





^..■^l^-. 



/ 




.yCc 



L- 



\?>l] 



BIOGRAPHICAL EXCYCLOF.EDIA. ' 331 _ 

■ ,■! ,s-c when thi-v commenced banking, and at which 
';",■"";:,::" minef t oos-.,, ^is .ime. Mr. Harrison was con- 
;;:,:,":,:;; 'he°";rB;nR or lnd,ana .„. .»..„,. ,.»., in dinc-ent pos,- 

"■";;' H^n-i^n h:r;:Uvavsbeen .ho„.n.h,v idenUi.cd wUh iho interest 

cr .n^ >::-*- - r^-u- :~c:n;rr 

„,„,„, „i, in which he ,.ves - -;>; --^r ^nd .ednn. and 
::l,:Zle:s:tn;;L;:;Vo,l An,an or ,a„ea..inn,enK winch 

'- r" :l:"t neve, wavered^ h, an inie... thai . nnin. 

Co.,,n,.. Massachuseus, ]annary 9, -79 • H *-^ G^_^^^^, ^„j i„ 
was a native of Union, a town in Connecticut •2"" = j^ ^^.jt^ Mr. 

He w.« fo' "- -" - ■^^X^ T, ,, ,„M,,„, a boy and two girls. 
Samuel Bates, of tast liuniteiu. straitened 

shared with Uiese parents le ^ ^ -^ '-/ ^,^„ ^,„g,„„, The 
irrVrh^hrrper. a,, the houseiioid thrived under 

'"VTMarch 2,d iS,2, he left home in search of employment more 
remunertwftha'n .ly he'conid t,nd in his native town. He found em- 



:^34 BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOP.-EDIA. 

ployment with Mr. Bela Tiffany, of Dudley, a prominent merchant in the 
southern part of Worcester County. At the end of the year for which he 
had engaged, his employer called for his account. 

In 1820 he went to Boston and formed a copartnership with Matthias 
Armsby antl Thatcher Tucker, under the name of Arnisbv, Tucker it Co. 
This was the first dry goods commission house established in New Eng- 
land. The next year they dissolved by mutual consent, Mr. Hitchcock 
receiving $3,000 as his share. A new copartnership was formed, and the 
business carried on under the name of Tucker. Sayles & Hitchcock, which 
firm, after the various changes through which it has passed, is now the 
well-known house of Gardner, Brewer & Co. Mr. Hitchcock retained 
his connection with the business until 1S39. 

Although those who knew Mr. Hitchcock in his early manhood speak 
of him as one who exhibited almost perfect physical development in form 
and carriage, his close attention to business finally impaired his health to 
such a degree that in 1831 he left Boston and went to Southbridge to act 
as agent of the Hamilton Woolen Company. This position, which he 
at first had reluctantly consented only temporarily to fill, till the suitable 
man should be found, he held for eleven years. He represented the town 
in the Legislature during the winter of 1836, and from 1836 to 1S42 was 
President of the Southbridge Bank. 

By constant application to business his health was impaired, and his 
bodily infirmities increased until, in 1S42, he withdrew entirely from active 
business pursuits. 

He returned to Brimfield, where he had in 1832 purchased a house 
for his widowed mother. With her and with his sister's fl\mily he enjoyed 
for many years the restful quiet of a happy, well-ordered home. After 
his mother's death in 1858, and the subsequent removal of his sister's 
family, he continued to live in the same house, and in the simple, unos- 
tentatious, methodical style which long-continued habit had made a 
second nature to him. A judicious investment of his property during 
the man)- years of his retirement resulted in its gradual increase, while 





^r/^ £. <^ ^v^-ir-i^yC:^^ — 



:OMLtY BROS. LONDON & NEW yORK. 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCVCLOPAiDIA. 337 

his habits of utmost frugality made but slight draft on his augmented 
resources. Thus he became possessed of a large fortune. Wealth, and 
the influence over others which it gives to any one known to {)ossess it in 
abundance, made no change in his views and feelings. Like the patriarch 
Jacob, "a plain man living in tents," Mr. Hitchcock preferred the 
seclusion and the simplicity of rural life to the hot fever of city ex- 
tra\agance. 

His increasing feebleness had been specially marked during the last 
years of his life. When the portrait was finished which the Directors of the 
American Congregational Association had engaged to have taken of him 
for the library of the Congregational House in Boston, he seemed to be 
much affected by the thought of its completion, as if it reminded him of 
the near completion of his own life-work. Early in the morning of the 
next day after the artist left him he was prostrated by an attack of heart 
disease, from which no medical skill or efforts of his friends could give 
relief After struggling a few hours against his malady, complicated as it 
was with other forms of disease, he sank into an unconscious state. On 
Sunday evening, November 23, 1873, soon after sunset, he reached the 
limit, or, as Christian faith teaches us in more truthful phrase to say, the 
gate of life. 

Hooker, Josiah, was born in Springfield, Mass., April 17th, 1796. 
His father, John Hooker, was a native of North Hampton, and his 
mother, Sarah Dwight, a native of Springfield. His early education was 
received at the Munson Academy. He entered Yale 181 1, graduated in 
the class of 18 14, then commenced the study of law in the office of 
George Bliss of Springfield, and was admitted to the bar 1818. One year 
later he moved to Pittsfield and continued his practice there until the 
death of his father (1829), when he returned to Springfield, took his 
father's office, and practiced law until iS69,when failing health caused him 
to retire. He did not fully follow the i)rofessiun in which he M-as educated, 
paying attendon to the collateral departments, such as magistrate, trial 
justice, referee and auditor in the review of cases — mostly the last. He 



33^ BIOGRAPHICAL EXCYCLOP.-EDlA. 

also had charge of a poHtical paper. The Gazette, for about eight yeai-s: 
also, for some years, was Inspector of the ]Munson State Almshouse. 
For twenty-two years he was a member of the School Board, officiating as 
chairman for twenty years. He also took an active part in the Sunday- 
school and temperance movements. The first graded public school built 
in Springfield, the Hooker School, was named in honor of his close and 
enthusiastic connection with educational matters. He had twice been 
elected to the Legislature, and at the time of his death, which occurred 
July 14th, 187^1, he was Treasurer of the Springfield Savings' Bank and 
Justice of the Peace. 

Two years after his decease, his wife, formerly Jane W'., daughter of 
J. A. Judd, of West Hampton, to whom he was married October 29th, 
1S49, presented the Hooker School with a handsome clock, a fitting 
tribute to his memory. 

He was a man of thorough rectitude and firm principle, temperate in 
all things, moderate in action and expression. In society he was highly 
esteemed and had marked influence and value. 

Hovey, Daniel, was born in Lyme. X. H., ]March 25th, 1792. and 
was the son k^{ Daniel and Bulah Ho\ey, both of whom were from Con- 
necticut, and who were married in 1789 

The above gentleman was fitted for college in Hanover, N. H., and 
when eighteen he commenced the study of medicine with Dr. Cyrus 
Hamilton of L\me, remaining with him as student till 1S13, and one 
vear as practicing phvsician. Some time in 1814 he moved to Coldbrook, 
N. H., practicing there one year, when he removed to Canaan, X. H. 
On the death of his former preceptor he returned to his native town, ami 
entered practice in about 1822, where he remained till 1842, when he 
removed to Greenfield, where he continued the practice of medicine till 
i860. Through all this time and till his death, he was engaged in the drug 
and prescription business, which is now carried on by his son, George 
H. Hovey. 

He died May 6th, 1874, at Greenfield. He was married in 181 7 to 





/x 



Ni'.W YORK. 



D 



5^ 



PIOCRAPNICAL EXCYCL0P.€:D/A. 34? 

Hanna Hough Harris, by whom he had four children, iwo of whom are 
still living. 

He was a ven- genial ami kindly disix^sed man. having many friends 
and few or no enemies. A m.\n with a remarkable memory', fond of 
society, and greatly admirevl for his many gv^xxl qualities ami excellent 
characteristics, 

Johnson, Sylvan der. was lx>m at Staft\>nl. Conn., February- 2d. 
1S15, and is the son of Jonathan and Statira Johnson, natives of that place. 
He receiveil as good an etluoition as most boys did in his time, which 
consisted of a few months each winter till he was fourteen rears of age. 
At the age of thirteen yeai^ old he lost his father, one year after which he. 
at the age of fourteen, went as one of the hands in a cotton mill at Chico- 
j^ee. where he remaineil about fi\-e years ; he then went to North Adams, 
where he workeii about four years more in a cotton mill, after which he 
went in a store as clerk, where he remainetl until 1 S3 7, when he o.^m- 
menceil business in a small way lor himself. This he continueil till 1849, 
when he removeti to Cojxike. X. Y.. and engaged in the furnace busi- 
ness. This new field was unsuited to his taste, so he abandonevl it in less 
than a year. 

In 1S50 when manufacturing was still its in inlancy in North Adams. 
Mr. Johnson returned and established a concern for the manufacture of 
cotton w^jrjis, which business he cirrieil on successfully up to 1S72. when 
his institution was bunieil to die ground. 

In the following year Mr. Johnsons exclusive propriet«.>rship was 
fomied into an incorj.x~»ratei.l comjvmy, of which Mr. Johnson has l^een the 
President since its incorporation. The concern employs about 200 hands, 
and has a capacity to turn out 6,000 \-ards of cotttm fabrics per day. 

Mr. Johnson has been an active citizen of Nonh Adams, always work- 
ing for the interest not ».»nly of himself and his business, but for that of 
his employees and fellow-citizens. He was instnmiental in getting the 
gas and water in the village, was the princijxil mover in getting up fairs 
and cattle-shows in the town, and the people acknowletlge him as one of 



344 BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA. 

the corner-stones of the place, giving him the name of being just in all 
his transactions — a man they are proud to hold up conspicuously as one 
of their leading citizens; and have shown their appreciation of his worth 
by sending him to the Legislature in 1847, 1857, 1859, 1864, and 1866. 
He was chosen to the Governor's council in 1869 and 1870. He has also 
been Selectman of the town for several years. He is well known to the 
citizens of Adams, and in connection with his acknowledged business 
qualificatitnis, he is highly esteemed for his moral attributes. He is still 
active in mind and body, attends closely to his business ilaily, and is well 
known as a sagacious and honorable financier and man. 

Jones, Aquilla, was born in Stokes County, North Carolina, July 
8th, I Si I, He was the son of Benjamin and Mary Jones. His father 
was a farmer of limited circumstances, and could afford the subject of 
this sketch but a limited amount of schooling. He remained at home 
laboring on the farm until 1831, when his father, with his family, emi- 
grated to Columbus, Bartholomew County, Indiana, he having a son 
there, Elisha P. Jones, who had preceded them about six years, and who 
at the time of their arrival was engaged in the mercantile business, and 
was also postmaster. A. Jones went into his brother's store as clerk, re- 
maining with him until August, 1836, at which time he married Sarah 
Ann, daughter of Evan Arnold. He then went to the State of Missouri, 
where he remained about one year, when he again returned t() Columbus 
and bought a hotel, but hid only been engaged in this business about 
eight months when his wife died, after which he sold his hotel and closed 
up its affairs. Soon after this his brother, Elisha P. Jones, took sick and 
died. Aquilla arranged to take the stock of goods, and was made post- 
master by common consent. He continued in the mercantile business 
first with Chas. Jones, a brother, afterwards with B. F. Jones, another 
brother, until 1856, and most of the time from October, 1838, up to 
1854 was postmaster at Columbus, when he resigned. 

In March, 1840, he married again, to Harriet, daughter of Hon. Jno. 
W. Cox, of Morgan County, Indiana. In the same }-ear he was ap- 



BIOGRA PHICA L EIVC 1 'CL OI\EDU. 



349 



pointed to take the census of Bartholomew County by Martin Van Buren, 
and also to the same ollice in 1850. Was tendered the otlice of Clerk of 
the Court of Bartholomew County, Indiana, but declined. Was elected 
and ser\-ed in the State Legislature of 1842-3. Was appointeil Indian 
Agent for Washington Territory in 1854 by President Pierce, and after- 
wards tendered the agency of New Mexico, both of which positions he 
also declined. 

He was nominated in 1856 for Treasurer of State, was elected, and 
served to the expiration of his term, when he was renominated by accla- 
mation, but declined. 

He was elected Treasurer of the Indianapolis Rolling Mill Company 
in 1 86 1, which position he held until 1873, when he was made its 
President, in place of Jno. INI. Lord, resigned. He was elected President 
of the Water Works Company in' 1873, ^'-'^ held the oflice but a short 
time when he resigned, the rolling mill requiring all of his attention. 

]\Ir. Jones has had thirteen children, nine of whom are now living, 
eight sons and one daughter, and has been a hard worker, and engaged 
in active business for nearly lift}- years — has done much to make a 
country, and his success in life is due to his own energ}- and enterprise. 

Kimball, Edward Dearborn. The subject of this sketch was 
born at Plaistow, N. H., December, i8ir, and was a son of Nathaniel 
and Sarah Knights Kimball. He received his education at Atkinson 
Academy, N. H., an institution started largely by his grandmother, and 
which he attended until he engaged in business at home. It is often 
asserted, but without a shadow of reasonable support, that if a man have 
genius and talent he will become eminent in the sphere he moves in even 
if he has not the advantage of proper pre\"ious training. Examples are 
not often given of men who by the mere force of intellect, without its 
bemg strengthened by proper training and preparation, become lights in 
the various avocations antl professions of life. Fortunatelv for Mr. Kim- 
ball, he had received all the adventitious assistance of thorough training. 

In the fall of 1S33 he made a voyage to South America, and the fol- 
io 



350 BIOGRAPHICAL EXCYCLOP.^DIA. 

lowing year, at the age oi twenty-throe, he moved to Salem from Plaistow, 
where he had given his attention to tanning and brick-making in a small 
way. Here he entered into the Eastern produce business with Stephen 
Hoyt, who was in the ^lexican war and late rebellion with the rank \di 
major— afterwards made Mayor of New Orleans under Gen. Banks. This 
connection was dissolved in the winter of 1S37 by ^Ir. Hoyt withdrawing 
from the business, and Mr. Kimball continued it until 1S43, when he 
bought out the African business of his brother-in-law, David Pingree. 
This necessitated his going to the west coast of Africa, which he did soon 
after, taking \\-ith him his wife, and remaining about a year and a half to 
look after his propert}' and qualif}- himself for the successful prosecution 
of the business. This, in connection with the East India business, he 
continued until his death, which occurred at Paris, France, in September, 
1S67, at the age of fifty-six, after a lingering illness. During his business 
career he was at times associated with David Pingree, Esq., his brother- 
in-law, also with his nephew, Thomas Pingree, and Charles H. Miller. 
He, during his life, filled several other positions of trust and honor, 
among them the presidency of both the Xaumkeag Cotton !Mills of Salem, 
^lass., and the Xaumkeag Bank of Salem. He was successful in all of 
his business pursuits from a rare combination of industn^ and judgment, 
managing all his aftairs with great skill and success ; an indomitable 
worker ; he possessed all the requirements for a large and successful mer- 
chant, being at once a good buyer, seller and accountant, polished in all 
his manners, decided in his opinions, prompt to act upon them, which 
at once gained for him the confidence and respect of all who knew him, 
and he at all times exhibited a rectitude of character which never wavered 
from the proper direction. 

Kirkham, James, was born in Xewington. Conn., April 24, 1S21. 
the third child of a family of nine. His parents, William (a clothier) 
and Sophia Leflingwell, were also natives of Connecticut. The subject 
of this sketch received his education from the common schools and ^Irs. 
Olney's private school, at Hartford. At the age often, or in 1S31, his 





^^^^^^^^€.^-^/^>^^^^ 



^t^C^t^^ 



-.DONi-NEW YORK. 



/3«: 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCVCLOPMDIA. 3S3 

father moved temporarily to Springfield, where he taught in one of the 
schools, returning to his native town in 1838. Of course, James went 
with him, and attended the high school at Springfield, until fifteen, after 
which he entered the Rev. Dr. Lawton's school, also at Springfield. 

In 1837 James Kirkham was apprenticed to Henry Sargeant, a silver- 
smith, who soon after discontinued manufacturing, started a store, and in- 
stalled James as clerk. Here he continued until 1845, when, with one E. 
Woodworth, he formed a partnership and started in the jewelry business, 
under the firm style of Woodworth & Kirkham. In 1851 Mr. Kirkham 
bought out his partner and conducted the business alone for four years. 
He then associated with him his brother — the firm style being J. & W. 
Kirkham. In 1857 James sold out to his brother, who continued the 
business until his death, in 1871. In 1857 James Kirkham was chosen 
President of the Pynchon Bank, of which he had been a director since its 
organization, in 1854. He remained its President until October, 1862. 
When the new National banking law was passed, Mr. Kirkham became 
interested in forming an institution under that system, and the bank of 
which he was chosen President, in 1863, was the first one in the country 
to make application for a charter. Superior influence at headquarters de- 
prived them, however, of receiving the honor of the first charter, and his 
bank numbers 14 in the national banks of the United States. In 1869 
the company built a very handsome granite building, certainly one of the 
finest bank buildings in the city. 

In 1856 Mr. Kirkman was President of the Common Council, and for 
a term was Collector of City Taxes. 

On November, 6, 1846, he was joined in wedlock to Frances, daughter 
of the late John B. Kirkham ; the issue of this marriage has been one son. 

Mr. Kirkham 's business career has been a notably successful one, and 
presents a fine illustration of what well directed energy, industry, resolu- 
tion and integrity may accomplish. To such men our country owes last- 
ing obligations for their labors in developing its resources and contribut- 
ing to its prosi)erit\' and power. 



354 BIOGRAPHICAL ENCVCLOPMDIA. 

Knox, Col. Cyrus, was born in Sunbridge, Vt., January 21st, 1795. 
He was the youngest but one of a family of twelve children, whose inherit- 
ance was limited to sound integrity, the noble virtues, and the strong com- 
mon sense of their parents. He received only a very limited education, 
— in fact, nothing to speak of — ^and at the age of eighteen he went to Palmer, 
Mass., going the whole distance, 150 miles, on foot, with all his worldly 
goods in a handkerchief slung across his shoulder. His first night's lodg- 
ing at the old Bates tavern, near the Segenick Place, exhausted every cent 
he had in his pocket ; but he found employment as a farm-hand the next 
day with his aunt, who lived just on the &({%& of Monson. In the autumn, 
he returned to Vermont in the same manner that he came — on foot ; but he 
came back the next spring and was employed by the late Charles Stearns 
of Springfield, as mason-tender ; the following year he engaged in the tan- 
ning business at Monson with his brother, occupying the premises after- 
wards owned by Mr. Toby. For a year and a half the two brothers 
struggled against adverse circumstances, and finally failed. During his 
residence in Monson he was married to the daughter of John'' Shaw of 
Palmer, and on relinquishing business in the former place, he came to 
live with his father-in-law at Palmer, and with the exception of six months 
at Richmond, Va. , wliere he was engaged as foreman of a gang of hands 
in constructing the James River Canal, he remained upon the Shaw 
homestead till the time of his death. 

In the old military organization of the town which was then in a 
flourishing condition, he acted a prominent part, passing through several 
grades of promotion to become captain of his company, and in 1829 
was elected colonel of his regiment. During his entire residence in 
Palmer he possessed the esteem and confidence of his fellow-citizens to 
a high degree. For many years, and at different periods, he held the 
place of Assessor and Selectman. In 1829, and again in 1 835, he represent- 
ed the town in the Legislature. He was elected County Commissioner in . 
1830, and again in 1840, serving two full terms. In 1845 "^ Commissioner 
by the Governor, with Increase Sumner of Berkshire County, to kx)k after 




G^^^^^ 




Z'-y-y 



c^-^ 



B^ 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA. 359 

the shad fisheries on the Connecticut River. The Eastern Hampdon 
Agricultural Society elected him a delegate for three years to the State 
Board of Agriculture in 1857; and in 1861 he was appointed by the 
Governor one of the Commissioners on the pleuro-pneumonia. His last 
official position was that of Postmaster, which he held at the time of his 
decease. 

For many years during the latter part of his life his time was much 
occupied with affairs which his fellow-citizens committed to his trust, 
candid opinion, and judgment. For neariy half a century Col. Knox 
was an active citizen of the town. He saw it grow from a sparsely-set- 
tled territory to contain a population of more than 4,000. He witnessed 
the rise of villages and factories on its streams, and the red stage-coaches 
pass away to give place to the locomotive. 

Landers, Franklin, was born in Morgan County, twelve miles 
southwest of Indianapolis, on the 2 2d day of March, 1825, and was the 
seventh son of a family of twelve, belonging to William and Belilah 
Landers. He received a common school education, and remained on 
the farm with his father till he was of age. He then left home, working 
on a farm in the summer and teaching school in the winter, at which vo- 
cations he remained one and a half years, by which means he accumu- 
lated about $300.-00. He then went into the dry goods business, in 
Waveriy, Morgan Co., with his brother, Washington, two years his senior, 
they remaining together four years, during which time, they with their 
business and trading in hogs, accumulated about $16,000.00, when they 
separated. Mr. Landers remained two years longer, when he bought 
500 acres of land of Harrison Lyons, and laid out the town of Brooklyn ; 
a branch of the New Albany & Salem Railroad passed directly through 
the town ; the same road-bed is now used by the L k V. R. R. , and 
Brooklyn is now a flourishing town. Mr. Landers farmed and sold goods 
for twelve years, or till 1864, with good success, during which time he 
accumulated land to the extent of 1,800 acres. 

In 1865 he moved to Indianapolis and went into the jobbing busi- 



360 BIOGRArinCAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA. 

ness, being a member of the firm of Webb, Taskington it Co., which 
business he is still in : the firm being at present Hibben, Pattison & Co. 
He had. always been heavily engaged in farming, and in 1877 owned 
2,300 acres of land ; farming in that year 500 acres of corn, and turning 
out $30,000 of stock. In 1872 he bought one-fourth interest in a 
slaughtering and pork-packing house in Indianapolis, and in 1873 ^"^ 
bought all. His business now comprises farming, pork-packing and job- 
bing dry goods. In his business connections he has always been success- 
ful. In i860 he was elected to the State Senate, from the counties of 
Morgan and Johnson, and ser\ed four years during the war ; at the end 
of which term he thought of having nothing to do with politics, but in 
1874 he was elected to Congress, and though the district was against 
his party 2,200 votes, he gained the day by 566 votes over General 
John Coburn, who had served for eight years. During his term he was 
the author of the Silver Bill which passed two to one in the House, but 
was defeated in the Senate ; he was also a strong advocate for the Govern- 
ment issuing all the circulating medium, gold, silver and Government 
notes, and he is still of the opinion that it is the only way to relieve the 
labor of the counir\- and prevent a moneyed aristocracy. 

In 1867 he was a candidate for re-election, but was defeated by a few 
hundred votes. In the same year he and Mr. Holeman were the candi- 
dates for nomination for Governor ; but while the contest was high be- 
tween these two, Mr. Williams" name slipped in and he was elected to the 
ofiice. 

Mr. Landers has been twice married; first, in 1850, to INIiss C. M. 
Shufflebarger; in 1865, to Martha E. Conditt, who still lives, and by 
whom he has had four children, three of whom are living, as are two 
children by his first wife, by whom he had four. 

Mr, Landers is prominently mentioned in connection with the can- 
vass for Governor of Imliana in 1880. Should he receive the nomination 
of his party, he will almost certainly be elected, for his personal popular- 
ity anil ability as a canvasser will render it impossible for any one to de- 
feat him. 




QcA-y^-e <^o~— c-yC^^ 



BIOGRA PHICA L ENC \ CI. OP. F.DI.l . 365 

He is in the prime (iflifc, is in vi,<j(>nuis Iicn'th, and bids fair to li\e 
many years. Should lie do so, lie will, no doubt, in the iiiture, be often 
heard from in connection with the history and politics of the State. 

Laughlin, James. President of the First National Bank of Pitts- 
burgh, was born in County Down, Ireland, in 1807, and came to America 
in 1829, where he engaged first as an importer of china and earthenware. 
In 1833 be commenctHl business as a wholesale dealer in groceries ; he 
continued thai, together with pork packing, for nineteen years. In 1S52 
he embarked in the blast furnace and rolling mill business, which is his 
present vocation, th(High really he is not active. In 1850 he was elected 
President and Director of the Ixink he nt)\v is President of, which changed 
its name to the First National Bank when the new banking laws were 
passed, his institution being among the first to apply for a charter. 
What success has attended his exertions and shrewd business management 
is apodictic to us all, for there are few among our readers who ilo not 
know ]Mr. Laughlin personall}- or by reputation as being among the 
largest iron manufacturers in the world. 

Martin, Hon. Calvin, was born at Hancock, Berkshire Countv, 
Massachusetts, August 7th, 17S7, being the only son of Gideon IMartin, 
F.sq. . of that town. He received his early education in the schools of 
Hancock, and in the Lenox Academy, then one of the most notctl insti- 
tutions in the State, and in which he was afterwards a tutor. 

He studied law with the Hon. Chandler Williams, of Pittsfield, a 
gentleman as much distinguished for his incorruptible integrity as for his 
high professional attainments, and was admitted to the Berkshire bar in 
1814. 

In 18 16 he married ]\tary, daughter of Captain David C\inipbell, and 
he became a permanent and soon conspicuous citizen of that town. 

In his profession he was distinguished for sound judgment and thor- 
ough learning, and had a special reputation as a real estate lawyer both 
among his professional brethren and a large circle of clients. 

Like his distinguished preceptor in the law, he was scrupulously hon- 



366 BIOGRArillCAL ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

orable, even in matters which to most men would seem trivial, and what- 
ever success he had as a man in business, he achieved without a single 
deceit or any thought of guile, and he won wherever he was known the 
name of an honest lawyer. 

IVIuch of his success in life was due to his methodical habits, and the 
knowledge of this, as well as of his scrupulous honesty and reliable 
judgment, caused him to be often intrusted with matters pertaining to 
the financial interests of the town. 

In 1849 one of the later instances of this kind occurred. The town, 
having purchased the fine farm which has since become its beautiful 
cemetery, intrusted it to a corporation, to be prepared for its purposes 
as a burial place, and for perpetual management. 

Of this corporation Mr. Martin was made the first President, and 
continued so until his death, covering the formative period of the institu- 
tion. 

An early friend of religion, and always deeply interested in the wel- 
fare of the community in which he lived, he contributed cheerfully to all 
objects of Christian benevolence which claimed his aid, and to whatever 
in his judgment, was calculated to advance the good of the town. 

Influenced perhaps by his early experience as a teacher, he was 
speciallv interested in all departments of popular education, and gave 
throughout his life, his cordial support to the public schools in particular. 

He long contemplated doing something more definitely to advance 
the cause of general intelligence, and a few years before his death, a pro- 
ject being originated for an Athenx'um including a free public libraiy, he 
entered into an agreement with two other gentlemen, Hon. Messrs. 
Thomas Allen and Thomas F. Plunkett, by which Mr. Martin promised 
to give $5,000, and each of the others $1,900, whenever the project was 
r'.pe for execution. This was not till 1871 — Mr. Martin having died in 
the interval. His promised donation was, however, paid by his executor, 
and with it, and other promised gifts, a fine building on an excellent site 
was purchased and the Athenaeum was established. This has since de- 



B I OCR A ririCAL ENC YCLOP.-EDIA. 371 

veloped into the Berkshire AtheiiKum, which, by the subsequent munifi- 
cent gifts of Messrs. Thomas and Phinehas Allen, the large liberality of 
the town, and from other sources, has become a wealthy corporation, with 
one of the finest buildings of the kind in the commonwealth and a hand- 
some income, 

Mr. Martin died September 6th, 1867, aged eighty. 

May, Edward S., was born at Putney, Vt, October 6, 1809, and 
is the ninth son of a family of fifteen. His father, Huntingdon May, was 
a native of Connecticut. The subject of this sketch received what educa- 
tion he could get from the common schools, until fourteen, when he 
was apprenticed to a woolen manufacturer, with whom he served six 
years. He then moved to Winchendon for one year, working at his 
trade as wool dyer. At the expiration of this engagement, he returned to 
Putney, and became superintendent of the mill he learned his trade -in. 
In 1 83 1 he moved to Walpole, N. H., and for__the next three years was 
engaged in the manufacture of knitting yarn. In 1835 he went to 
Granby, Mass., and for five years assumed his old position of superintend- 
ent of a mill. Lee, Mass., next claimed him as her citizen, and here he 
commenced the manufacture of paper, with Sylvester S. May, his brother, 
at which business he still continues. He was married, in 1840, to Eme- 
line Farry, of Granby, and by whom he has had seven children — three 
only surviving. Without doubt, Mr. ]\Iay is a self-made man, and one 
who has the esteem and confidence of all who know him. 

May, Sylvester S., was born in Putney, Vt, June 27, 1813, and 
is the eleventh son of a family of fifteen, of Huntington May, who came 
from Connecticut. He received a common school education until about 
fifteen. When twehe years old, he was apprenticed to paper mak- 
ing, in Putney, where he remained till about 1832, when he went to 
Brattleboro, Vt., and remained two years. In 1834 he went to Lee, 
where he worked as journe}-man till 1835, when he was made superin- 
tendent of a mill, and at the end of two years he went into the manufac- 
ture of paper, with one Ingersoll, the firm being IngersoU & May, this 
II 



372 BIOGRAPHICAL ENCVCLOr.EDIA. 

continuing till 1S39, when the mill burned down. After this, Mr. Ed- 
ward S. ]\Iay, his brother, bought out j\Ir. Ingersoll, and they built up 
their present mill, and have been largely engaged ever since in the manu- 
facture of paper. 

]\Ir. Sylvester S. INIaywas married to IMarietta Bassett, of Lee, in 1839, 
by whom he has had five children, three of whom are living. 

Through life he has accomplished much, and now, dwelling in the 
affluence and honor gained by his industrj- and experience, he can look 
back upon his past unsullied career with conscious pride and satisfaction. 

Mayher, John, was born in Albany, N. Y., September 9, 1831. 
His father, Lawrence Mayher, emigrated from Ireland in 1820. The 
subject of this sketch received a common school education. At the age 
of fourteen he ceased his studies and entered a store as clerk, where he re- 
mained until seventeen. After this he served four years, learning the stove 
and tinware business. At this he continued for some time, during which 
period he moved to North Hampton, where he worked one year for Hill- 
man ct Dav. The next three years he lived at Ha\-denville, where he 
worked for his brother. Next we find him in business for himself, at 
Easthampton, where he opened a stove and tinware store in 1855, with a 
capital of $300. In 1869 he sold out his entire business, to engage in 
the manufacture of pumps (Wright's patent). This departure has proved 
in every way successful, and the company, which is a pri\ate one, named 
the Valley Machine Company of Easthampton, is doing a flattering 
trade. 

Mr. jNIayher was joined in wedlock, August 21, 1855, t" Lienor 
Sprague, of Pittsfield ; the issue of this marriage has been nine children, 
only four of whom survived. 

The success of Mr. IMayher's life has been due to his own energies, 
coupled with the help of his wife, who has proven herself, indeed, a life 
helpmate. His motto in life has been to excel in all he undertook, and 
his success shows how well he has lived up to the maxim which he set 
before him as a guide. 



v^ 



BIOGRAPHICAL EATYCLOP^EDIA. 379 

Newman, John S., was born in Montgomery County, Ohio, April 
10, 1805. In 1S07 he was taken to what is now known as Wayne Town- 
ship, Indiana, by his father, who settled two miles north of Richmond. 
His mother having died, May 18, 1806, he was taken into the family of 
his grandfather, Andrew Hoover, Sr. In January, 1827, he moved to 
Centreville, where he was employed in the office of his uncle, Da\-id 
Hoover, then Clerk of the County courts. He there also studied law ; 
was admitted to the bar in May, 1828, and continued to practice until 
i860. For nearly ten years of the period of his practice, he was in part- 
nership with Jesse P. Siddall, under the firm'name of Newman & Siddall. 
In 1834 he was elected a Representative of the Legislature. He was 
afterward, for several years, a partner in the firm of Hannah & Newman, 
in the mercantile business, in Centreville. In 1850 he was elected a dele- 
gate to the Constitutional Convention. In 1847 he was chosen President 
of the Whitewater Valley Canal Company, serving as such five years. In 
1 85 1 he was chosen President of the Indiana Central Railroad Company, 
and in i860, for convenience to his business, he moved to Indianapolis, 
where he still resides. In 1867 he was chosen President of the Mer- 
chants' National Eank of that city, which office he still held in 1877. 

He was married, October i, 1829, to Eliza J., daughter of Samuel 
Hannah, of Centreville. They have had six children, three of whom — 
Mrs. H. G. Carey, Mrs. Ingram Fletcher, of Indianapolis, Mr. Oscar 
Newman, of Chicago — are still living. Mr. Walter Newman, another 
son, who was ist Lieutenant in the United States Arm}-, and who served 
in the late war, died in Indianapolis, January i, 1864, of disease con- 
tracted while in active service. 

Patterson, Alfred, President Pittsburg National Bank of Com- 
merce, was born December 24th, 1807, in Fayette County, Pa,, where he 
lived until January, 1865. He received his education and graduated at 
Jefferson College, Washington County, Pa., after which he studied law, 
practicing his profession for thirty years at Union, Fayette County, Pa. 
In 1858 he was elected President of the Bank of Fayette County, after- 



38o BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPMDTA. 

wards National Bank of Fayette County. Here he remained six years, 
and in 1865 was elected to the presidency of the Pittsburgh National Bank 
of Commerce. He moved his home to Pittsburgh that year, where he has 
since resided, and where he has large business interests, being a Director 
in several manufacturing companies in that city, though he yet retains his 
interest in Fayette County, 

Peabody, Joseph, was bom at Middleton, on the 9th of December, 
1757. His father was a deacon of the church, and descended from 
Francis Peabody, who came from St. Albans, Hertfordshire, Englantl, in 
1635, and was one of the first settlers of Topsfield, a part of which, 
together with portions of the adjacent towns, was incorporated in 1728, 
by the name of Middleton. These towns had previously been set off 
from Salem, the most ancient township of the colony of the Massachusetts 
Bay in New England. 

At the time when the battle of Lexington took place, INIr. Peabody, 
too young to be enrolled in the militia, joined the Boxford company as a 
volunteer, but they did not reach the scene of action until the British 
troops had passed down, much to his disappointment, as he prided him- 
self on his skill as a marksman. His brother-in-law being drafted to join 
the army, Mr. Peabody was obliged to remain and oversee the culti\'ation 
of the farm until the return of the former at the close of the campaign, 
when he gladly relinquished a life too passive and uncongenial to an 
active mind at so exciting a period. He now determined to acquire 
knowledge, and court fortune on the treacherous element which afforded 
the greatest opportunity for enterprise, as well as distinction, in the cause 
he espoused. 

Mr. Peabody, in 1778, joined the army under General Sullivan, after- 
wards making a voyage to Guttenburg in the letter of marque Rambler. 
He next sailed as prize master in the privateer Ftshaivk. This disgusted 
him, so he made many merchant voyages, which were very successful. 

Mr. Peabody, having p)ersonally retired from the ocean in 1791, 
except for a single trip as passenger to the West Indies, was now married 




Qv_.^^ . c/-^u/^jdf^ 




':r."LiY BRO. LONDON S-NSW v 1 o K 



o2 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOP.-EDIA. 383 

to Miss Catharine Smith, of Middleton, a daughter of the reverend friend 
to whom he was so much indebted for his mental and moral training in 
youth. This blessing he was not destined long to enjoy ; death separated 
them in the short space of two years. In 1795 he formed a matrimonial 
connection with Elizabeth, sister of his first wife, and it was their happi- 
ness to pass nearly half a century together in almost unalloyed prosperity. 

Mr. Peabod}^ did not fail to derive every advantage which commerce 
yielded under the fostering hand of government, at that time so liberally 
extended, and by honorable competition soon rose to wealth and in- 
fluence. He continued gratlually to increase the number of his ships 
with his accruing means, until they floated in every sea. To particularize 
his very numerous enterprises during the threescore years he was a ship- 
owner would be monotonous. Let it suffice, therefore, to enumerate 
important statistics relating to a business the magnitude of which has 
seldom, for so long a period, been conducted by the enterprise and in- 
dustry of an individual. 

Mr. Peabody built and owned eighty-three ships, which, in eveiy in- 
stance, he freighted himself; and for the navigation of them, he shipped 
at diff'erent times upwards of seven thousand seamen. Since the year 
181 1 he has advanced thirty-five to the rank of ship-master, who entered 
his employ as boys. He has performed by these vessels the following 
voyages, viz. : to Calcutta, 38; Canton, 17; Sumatra, 32; St. Peters- 
burgh, 47 ; other ports in the north of Europe, 10 ; the Mediterranean, 
20, before the war of 181 2. 

To the West Indies, Spanish Main, and along our wide extended 
coast, they are unnumbered. He had also for several years a large in- 
terest in a northwest coast trading and navigation company. 

The manner in which he conducted these extensive concerns con- 
tributed essentially to the prosperity of Salem, which he made the home 
of all his operations, and where the aggregate of his annual State, County 
and City taxes paid into the treasury amounted to about two hundred 
thousand dollars. 



384 BIOCRArmCAL ENCVCLOP.^DIA. 

Although engaged in active business for more than threescore years, 
to the extent of millions of dollars, and connected with thousands of 
agents of all descriptions, yet so maturely were his contracts considered, 
so respectful was he of the rights of others, and so much more did he 
prefer to submit to slight pecuniary sacrifices than to hazard his peace of 
mind, that he was never involved in litigation or controversies. 

His life may be considered of much more advantage to the community 
than that of many whose names are emblazoned in our annals merely 
from their connection with public events ; for very few, at the end of their 
career, can point to so much positive good effected by unaided personal 
efforts. 

INIr. Peabody closed his invaluable life, after a short illness, on the 5th 
of January, 1844, at the advanced age of eighty-six years. Two sons and 
a daughter have survived him. In person, he was tall, and commanding, 
with a carriage dignified, yet blended with singular modesty. From his 
reserve, few had an opportunity justly to estimate the strength of his in- 
tellect, or the refinement and delicacy of his sentiments. The lofty time 
of the latter, and his dignified character, could only be appreciated by 
those who, for a long period, were in constant intercourse with him. We 
have never known an individual who in daily life so uniformly preserved 
an entire self-respect, and,' at the same time, was so courteous and yielding 
to his friends. 

Pearsons, "William B. C. The subject of this sketch was born at 
Bradford, Orange County, Vermont, December 19th, 1825, of John and 
Hannah Pearsons. His mother was the grandniece of Israel Putnam. 
His father was a farmer, yet he gave his son an academic education and 
all the advantages of early mental culture. He continued his academic 
course until 1846, when he entered Harvard College Law School, where 
he graduated in the Class of 1849, with full honors, receiving the degree 
of L. L. B. On receiving his diploma, Mr. Pearsons removed to Holyoke, 
Mass., and commenced the practice of law, which he carried on success- 
fully as general practitioner until 1S74, giving it up on account of his 





/i^:«:>z^'z,'<-^ 



.OMLE.BnO5.LONr)0N3<NEWV0KK. 



D^ 



BIOGRAPHICAL EXCYCLOP.KDIA. 389 

ofTicial position and appointment to the judgeship of the Pohce Court of 
Holyoke, which occurred in 1877. Since his retirement from general 
j)ractice he has given his attention only to the higher courts. 

Mr. Pearsons was always remarkable for perseverance and ambition to 
excel, and it is not surprising to know that his abilities did not pass with- 
out notice or rewartl. He held man)- of the town offices of Holyoke 
}K-evious to its incorporation as a city in 1873, '•^'^ which time he was 
elected its first Mayor, a position he held for three years. It it unneces- 
sary to add, he filled the position with honor and dignity. In i860 he 
was elected a member of the State Legislature, and in 1863 to the State 
Senate, where he left the impress of his judgment upon the Legislative en- 
actments of the State. He resigned his position in the Senate to accept 
an appointment tendered him by Abraham Lincoln, as paymaster in the 
army, serving until the flill of 1865 ; during most of this time he was 
stationed at Fortress Monroe, Norfolk, Va. After paying off the dis- 
banded soldiers he returned to Holyoke, his former field of labor and re- 
sumed the practice of his honorable profession, which, as before stated, he 
continued until appointed judge. 

Mr. Pearsons was jt)ined in wedlock to Sarah E., daughter of George 
Taylor, Estj., of Westfield, Mass., Februaiy 25th, 1857, by whom he has 
had two daughters and one son. 

In the community in which he lives he enjoys the confidence of all 
who know him, as one of the purest of men, reliable in every respect, 
though modest and retiring, passing for less than his real worth. A man 
of large attainments, which are sound and substantial. He has been a 
stirring practical man, both in his private and public life, and his good 
constitution being still vigorous and unenfeebled, and his fine intellect 
ripened by experience, he would do honor to any official function in the 
gift of the State. 

Pierce, Henry Lillie, the JNIavor of Boston, Mass. (1878), was 
born in Stoughton, Mass., on the 23d of August, 1825. He received a 
good English education at the public schools in that town, and at the 



39° BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAiDIA. 

State Normal School in Bridgewater. At twenty-five years of age he became 
connected in a subordinate capacity with the chocolate manufactory of 
Walter, Baker & Co., at Dorchester, and on the death of the head of that 
house, in 1854, he took charge of the business, and has since been the 
sole owner and manager. At an early age he took a lively interest in 
public affairs, and while still a schoolboy contributed articles for some of 
the countr}' papers on the political questions of the day. On the nomi- 
nation of Martin Van Buren, in 1848, he joined with enthusiasm in the 
free-soil movement. He aided with voice and pen and money the pur- 
poses of the anti-slavery party until those purposes had been triumphantly 
established. He was a member of the State Legislature during the years 
i860, '61, '62 and '66. He was Chairman of the Finance Commit- 
tee which, in 1862, reported and secured the passage of the acts pro- 
viding for the payment of the State bonds in gold, and the taxing of 
savings banks and insurance companies. On the annexation of Dor- 
chester to the City of Boston, in 1869, Mr. Pierce ^\■as chosen to 
represent that district in the Board of Aldermen. After serving two years 
he retired, and in the latter part of 1872 he was elected Mayor of the 
city. His vigorous and business-like administration gave great satis- 
faction to the citizens, and in October of that year he was nominated for 
representative in Congress from the Third Massachusetts District, and 
elected by a nearly unanimous vote. In order to take his seat at the 
beginning of the session he withdrew from the INIayor's office a month 
before the expiration of his term. He allied himself with the conserva- 
tive element in the Republican party, and strongly opposed the harsh and 
unconstitutional measures by which certain leaders in that party sought 
to retain their control of the States lately in rebellion. Three of his 
speeches during the two terms which he served attracted the attention of 
the country, namely, one in opposition to the Force Bill, so called, in 
February, 1875 ; one on limiting the election of a President to one term 
of six years, in January, 1876 ; and one in opposition to counting the 
electoral vote of Louisiana, in February, 1877. In the latter part of 



i^= 




Kfr.v.^r -RTjns T.fTKrn mT x- TrKWYOTlK. 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA. 



395 



1877 he was asked by some 2,500 of his fellow citizens of all classes and 
all parties to accept a nomination for Mayor. Upon the representations 
which were made as to the evils which would follow from a continuance 
of the then partisan administration, he felt it to be his duty to accept ; 
and after a severe contest he was elected over his opponent by some 
2,300 in a total vote of about 48,000. 

Pomeroy, Theodore, was born in Pittsfield, September 2, 1813, 
and is the son of the late Lemuel Pomeroy, who went to Pittsfield from 
Southampton in 1799. The family claim descent from Sir Ralph de 
Pomeroy, a favorite knight of William the Conqueror. In 1636 Eltwerd 
and Elder Pomeroy, brothers, being men of liberal and independent 
mind, left Devonshire and emigrated to Doncaster, Mass. 

When Eltwerd (from whom Theodore Pomeroy is descended) was 90 
years old he removed to Southampton with his son Eldad, who received 
a grant of one thousand acres in that town on condition that he should 
there establish himself as a gunsmith and blacksmith. 

In 1799 Lemuel Pomeroy went to Pittsfield, taking with him the 
anvil which his ancestor had carried up the Connecticut river, from Wind- 
sor to Southampton, and which is now in possession of the family. 

The subject of the present sketch received a good ordinary education 
in Pittsfield, and at the age of eighteen went into the mill now owned by 
him and his brother, the firm being L. Pomeroy 's Sons — it then being 
Josiah Pomeroy & Co. The mill was built in 18 14 by a stock company, 
and in 1839 it was bought and run by the present owners' father, who 
died in 1849. 

Pratt, C. B., was born at Lancaster, Worcester County, on the 
14th of February, 1824. His parents were very poor, and at the age of 
nine years he was put out on the world to shift for himself From that 
time he had no home until he provided one for himself after his mar- 
riage. He first went to Fitchburg, where he worked in a cotton mill 
for three years, and at the age of twelve started for the west. He went 
by public conveyance to Albany, where, his money becoming exhausted, 

12 



396 BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCL01\-EDIA. 

he let himself to drive canal horses to pay his passage to Rochester. At 
Rochester he bound himself to Messrs. Shoords & Co. to learn the iron 
moulder s trade. He stopped with this firm as an apprentice for two 
years, when one day an incident occurred which changed the whole 
course of his life. In coming to the shop one morning he saw promi- 
nently displayed a poster stating that, on the afternoon of that day, there 
would be an exhibition of submarine diving at the mouth of the Genesee 
river in Lake Ontario, and that a man would remain under water three- 
quarters of an hour. His boyish curiosity was excited, and, obtaining 
permission from his master, on condition that he should finish his 
"stent," he went to the river, arriving shortly after the appointed hour. 
When he reached the spot he found a large crowd assembled, and Cap- 
tain G. W. Taylor, who advertised the exhibition, making a speech from 
the wheelhouse of a steamboat at the wharf. The purport of the speech 
was that the two divers he had engaged had disappointed him, and that 
the exhibition would have to be postponed unless some one of his audi- 
tors would consent to don the armor and go down. In conclusion, he 
offered I50 to anybody w-ho would volunteer to perform the feat. The 
magnitude of this offer stimulated the love of adventure and the rare 
personal courage with which young Pratt was amply endowed, and, 
elbowing his way through the crowd, he presented himself before Captain 
Taylor as a candidate for submarine honors. Pratt was then 14 years 
old, and small of his age, so at first little note was taken of his presence 
on the wheelhouse ; but by sheer persistence he finally won consent to 
try the experiment. Captain Taylor again addressed the crowd, telling 
them a boy had volunteered to go down, and, though he had little faith 
that the young man's courage would prove equal to the occasion, he 
would give him a trial. The steamer then moved out into the lake, the 
armor was put on, and young Pratt w-as dropped 60 feet to the bottom of 
Lake Ontario. He remained below the water 45 minutes, the adver- 
tised time, and was finally hauled up to the surface in safety. The busi- 
ness of submarine diving was comparatively new at that time, and prob- 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOFyEDlA. 397 

ably no one in the crowd, save Captain Taylor, had ever seen anything of 
the kind before. Consequently, when young Pratt made his appearance 
on the wheelhouse at the conclusion of his feat he was greeted with im- 
mense applause and lionized in the most extravagant way. Mayor Smith 
made a speech, in which he spoke in the most complimentary terms of 
young Pratt's courage, and closed by starting a subscription for him 
among the city officials and prominent citizens in the boat. As a result, 
$156 was collected, which, added to the $50 offered by Captain Taylor, 
made $206 as the net proceeds of that afternoon's work. The next day 
Captain Taylor waited upon Pratt's employees and tried to hire the boy 
away from them. This was finally accomplished, after considerable op- 
position on the part of the firm, by the payment of $300. Captain Tay- 
lor then engaged young Pratt to go with him for $20 a month and 
"found," and, after practicing in New York harbor a few days, master 
and pupil took passage for Key West. From there they went to the 
coast of Mexico, thence back to the great lakes, and then across the At- 
lantic to Gibralter, where one season was spent in removing the wreck of 
the United States steamer Missouri, sunk in that harbor. Pratt continued 
with Taylor until he was 20 years old, when, having saved up a consid- 
erable sum of money for those days, he returned^^home, married, and 
entered the foundry of W. A. Wheeler, in Worcester, to finish his trade 
as moulder, which he began at Rochester. He remained with Mr. 
Wheeler for several years, but money came in too slowly to suit his ideas, 
so, in 1 85 1, he went into business on his own account as submarine 
diver, and, for some years, did a very profitable business on the great 
lakes, where his previous experience with Captain Taylor had given him 
extensive acquaintance. He continued to contract for work of this kind 
at intervals until 1871, when he finally retired with an ample competence, 
which he will, doubtless, live many years to enjoy. One of his most 
successful operations was connected with the wreck of the British frigate 
Hussar, which was sunk near Hell Gate in 1780. He was president of 
a stock company, formed in 1853, ^'^ explore this wreck, and, together 



39§ BFOGRArmCAL ENCYCLOP.EDIA. 

with several other Worcester ])arties, is supposed to have made what is 
popularly known as a "good thing" out of it. The work was carried 
on for several years, and, it is said, the owners of stock toward the last 
failed to realize very heavy returns from their investment. I\Ir. Pratt is 
a man of indefatigable industry, strong will, and a perseverance that 
knows no defeat. In addition to his submarine business, which required 
him to be away from home a great deal, he has always held a prominent 
position among his fellow-townsmen. He has been City Marshal for 
three years, an Alderman, member of the Common Council and Repre- 
sentative in the Legislature, and is now President of the Worcester 
County Agricultural Society, President and Manager of the First National 
Fire Insurance Company, Director in the First National Bank, Director 
in the Bay State House Corporation, and holds other offices of public and 
private trust, and at present writing, Mayor of Worcester, 

Pynchon, Hon. "William, was born in the County of Essex, in 
England, A. D. 1590; came over in the ship with Governor Winthrop, 
A. D. 1630, his name appearing in the Royal Charter in the year 1629. 
He was a man of wealth, talent and enterprise, and was Magistrate and 
Treasurer of the Colony, until his removal from Roxbur)', of which he 
was one of the principal founders. He was leader of the band which 
boldly struck off to the Valley of the Connecticut in the year 1636, through 
the wilderness, one hundred miles distant from civilized man, and founded 
the town of Springfield, which was named in compliment to him from the 
name of the place of his country seat in England. He was a man of emi- 
nent piety and great executive ability, and besides attending to his duties 
as Magistrate, was occupied in all the concerns of the new settlement, 
which embraced a large surrounding territory. He was liberal in all his 
sentiments, and in an evil hour for his then present reputation and com- 
fort, wrote a book on the subject of the Atonement whose views were at 
variance with the strict Calvinistic views of the da}-, and he and his book 
were strongl}- condemned by those holding different dogmas. He was 
denounced as a heretic, and all the batteries of the colonial clergy were 





tCLTll 



^r 



n 



<^ 



01 




pLj063 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCVCLOP.-EDIA. 403 

let loose upon him, or rather upon his book, for he was still regarded as 
a beloved though erring brother by many, and every possible effort was at 
first put forth to reclaim him from his errors. The book was finally con- 
demned by the General Court, and sentenced to be burned in the presence 
of the faithful in the Boston market place. 

It is a somewhat curious commentar}' on these proceedings, that a copy 
of this work is now on exhibition at Springfield, having been purchased 
at the sale of the Brinley collection recently, at New York, thus revisiting 
for the first time publicly, so far as known, nearly two and one-half 
centuries afterwards, the scenes of the former glories and trials of its 
author. 

Mr. Pynchon, probably suffering under the stings of private and public 
censure, together with Henrj' Smith, a son-in-law, and the Rev. Mr. 
Moxon, the first minister of Springfield, whose family had suffered perse- 
cution for witchcraft, embarked for England shortly afterwards. He died 
in Wraisbur)--on-Thames, England, near the famous "Runnymede," 
A. D. 1662, at the age of 72 years. 

Rice, Reuben N., was born at Boston, May 30th, 18 14, and was 
the son of Nathaniel Rice, a native of Gedbur}-, Mass. At the age of 14, 
the subject of this sketch graduated at the high school of Boston. After 
this he entered a store and remained there until 1831, when he moved to 
Concord, Mass., and was engaged in mercantile pursuits there for fifteen 
years. In 1844 he sold his business and accepted a position from the 
Fishkill Railroad. In 1846 he moved to Detroit, Michigan, and became 
disbursing agent of the ]\Iichigan Central Railroad ; here he remained 
filling various offices until 1867, the last position being general manager. 
He then returned to Concord, Mass., and settled down. During his career 
as a railroad man he was interested in various enterprises, among others 
the street railways of Detroit and Liverpool. He is now largely interested 
in real estate in Concord, where he has done much to beautify the town 
and adorn it with many handsome houses. In 1840 Reuben N. Rice was 
married to INIar}' H., daughter of Col. Isaac Hurd, of Concord, and away 



404 BIOGRATHICAL EXCYCLOP.-EDIA. 

from his business no one more appreciates the quiet and enjoyment ol 
domestic happiness. 

Richardson, Amasa W., was born in North Adams, INIarch 4th, 
1 816, and is the son of David and Chloe Richardson; his father, who was 
a farmer, came from Rhode Island to North Adams in 1809. The edu- 
cation of the subject of this sketch was ver}- Hmited, and received at an 
ordinary district school, only attending about six months in a year, until 
about seventeen years old, doing work on the faim the rest of the time ; 
and even while at school, his spare moments were spent working at home. 
In 1833 he left the farm and entered a store as clerk with Edmund South- 
wick for one year ; he was then with John S. Pray for two years, when he 
embaiked at the age 20 in the fancy dry goods line, at which business he 
continued till 1866. In 1849 he engaged with other parties in cotton 
manufacturing, making print cloths and printing, and was practically 
identified with this industry till 1867. He then sold out his entire in- 
terest. In 1862 he built what is known as the Eagle Mills. In 1864 
he rebuilt the Union Print Works. In 1868 he built the Drur)' Academy, 
to which Nathaniel Drur}' contributed $30,000, the town giving the 
balance. In 1865 and '66 he built himself a ver)' handsome residence, 
then the first fine building of the kind in the city. He was for five years 
engaged in the manufacture of paper at South Adams. This caused him 
to m3et with very heavy losses, and from that time (1874) till spring, 
1877, he was not in active business, but engaged in the commission and 
produce business, taking in with him his fourth son, E. A. Richardson. 
In 1865, when the gas works were originated, Mr. Richardson was in- 
strumental in bringing the company to working order, and to him is due 
the credit of forming the works. He now owns the controlling stock of the 
company. In 1838 ]\Ir. Richardson was married to Harriet M. Ingraham, 
by whom has had six children. She died in 1854, from the effects of an 
ancesthetic given by a dentist. In 1856 he was again married, to Esther, 
daughter of Ashabel Cone, of Albany, N.' Y., by whom he had one son. 

In early life, the subject of this sketch developed a remarkable ability 





COMLEY 6R0S LONCON S-N'SW YORK 



flK 



.(.i 



BIOGRAPHICAL EXCYCLOP.'EDIA. 409 

for business, and this talent, united to an indomitable will and untiring 
nergy, enabled hint to plan and successfully execute -tens.ve bus.ness 
opemtions. He is a man of sterling integrity and upr.ghtness m h,s dea^- 
i^'s Though of a quiet and retiring demeanor, he .s possessed of 
s"urdy self-reHance, stirring activity, sound judgment, and enterpnstng 

""ffisttant aim has been to further all in.proveme„.s in his native 
town, and North Adams owes much to his influence and zeal .n public 

"" Rogers, R. S., was born in 1790, at Salem, Mass. He was largely 
connected with the commerce of Salem, at that time spread over near y 
all the globe. His father, Nathaniel, A. M., was a graduate at Harvard 
College .78^, and died ,799, aged 37- His mother Abagad (Dodge) 
Rote, died .8,7, aged 53. To premise, a brief allus.on to the.r 
femifyh story may be appropriate, if not conspicuous, as .t ,s somewhat 
sLLed with thL ofNew England. Mr. Nathaniel dodgers was he o^y 
son except an infant, of the Rev. Nathaniel of Ipsw.ch, Pastor of he 
Ftet Chu'ch. He was a man of superior intellect, wh.cn he cult.vat d 
M terarv and theological studies, and when called upon ,n counc, Is 
,as entrusted with a prominent part. As a preacher he avoided vam 
TlosophTand subtle'disputings. Indeed, it was hard to say whether 
the good or the great was his predominam character. 

The subject of this sketch received his finishing educanon a, Exetr 
Academy N. H., subsequently was a clerk in the store of Jesse Richard- 
son Esq merchant, of Salem. Afterward he was settled, some years at 
Rla as a commercial factor. He lost considerable property at the 
co^fl gration at Moscow. In 18.5 he sailed as supercargo of the sh.p 
Frienlhip to Calcutta. In ,8,7 he was master on the sh,p 7l,r/«r to 
Bombay. After ,8^0 he was engaged with his brothers, and stdl late 
became one of the firm. In ,843 the firm was dissolved ; he then went 
on a voyage to Australia and China in the ship lanthe, and on his return 
continued more or less in commerce until his decease. He also managed 



410 BIOGRAPHICAL EXCYCLOPMDIA. 

successfully many large estates. Richard Saltonstall Rogers was twice 
married, first to ^liss SallieCrowninshield, daughter of Hon. Jacob Crown- 
inshield, a democratic member of Congress, by whom he had seven chil- 
dren ; second, to jNIiss Eliza L. Pickman, by whom he had three children, 
viz. : Dudley Pickman Rogers, George Willoughby Rogers, and Eliza- 
beth Pickman Rogers. 

Russell, John, founder of the cutlery manufacturing in the United 
States, was born in Greenfield, Franklin County, INIassachusetts, INIarch 
30th, 1797. 

His father, also John Russell, was an influential citizen ; his mother 
was a aaughter of Nathaniel Edwards of Northampton. 

This family of Russells descended from John Russell, who came to 
the colony in 1634, in the ship Globe, from London, and settled at Cam- 
bridge, where he educated two sons at Harvard University. From one of 
these sons descended many of the Russells of southern Connecticut, and 
from the other the family that has lived for nearly two centuries in she 
valley of the Connecticut River in Massachusetts. 

The subject of this sketch had sound home training and received a 
good education at Westfield Academy, then a noted school. 

His parents were people of refinement, of liberal views, social, and 
given to hospitality. 

In 1 81 7 John Russell went to the South, where he was engaged in 
mercantile business, chiefly at Augusta, Georgia, until 1830. 

He was married in that year and visited his parents. 

Yielding to the persuasion of his family, he closed his business in 
Georgia and settled in Greenfield with no definite views of business. He 
had a considerable capital, which was mostly in cash, and being unem- 
ployed, he began to think of establishing the manufacture of the class of 
goods of which Sheffleld, England, had for centuries held the monopoly. 
This idea came from reading some practical book of travels in England, 
and from conversation in a stage-coach journey with a Rhode Island 
manufacturer, who had made a journev of observation in England. 





["^v.lFY BROS LONOQN&NEWYQRK 



1 



RTOGRAPHICAL ENCVCLOPMDIA. 413 

To carry out his plans, Mr. Russell built" small works on land west of 
the present Connecticut River Railroad station, with steam power. Here 
he produced edge tools, mostly socket chisels, and began to make 
arrangements for the importation of skilled labor from England, when his 
works were destroyed by fire. Mr. Russell was then joined by his 
brother Francis, and proceeded to build the "old cudery works," so 
widely celebrated as the •' Green River Works." Francis Russell went to 
England and sent over descriptions and skillful workmen. 

The business taking form from these preparations, they were joined 
by Henry W. Clapp, a retired jeweler of New York City, who had a large 
capital and a disposition to use it liberally and wisely. The business was 
now carried on upon a scale magnificent for that early period. The com- 
bination of men was a very fortunate one. John Russell was a man of 
steady temper, of executive mind, well-balanced, and an application that 
was never relaxed. Henry W. Clapp was a capitalist, of sterling good 
sense, and his business of a manufacturing jeweler had given him a fine 
taste that was of great value in the early stages of the cutlery business. 
Francis Russell was well qualified by education and fine address to be the 
introducer of the goods to the market, and opened the house in New 
York for the sale of the product of the works. 

The mercantile disasters of 1837-8 retarded, but did not stop them, 
and the progress of their business was steady and rapid from the beginning. 
Mr. Clapp did not long remain a partner, but he was the fast friend of 
the business at all times, and his place in the partnership was afterwards 
filled by his son, Henry B. Clapp, until 1861. 

In 1844 Nathaniel E. Russell, another brother, became an active 
partner, leaving the house in 1864. Mr. John Russell retired from the 
business in 1862, and died December 27th, 1874. At his death he left a 
widow and two sons, neither of whom are connected with the cutlery 
business. jMr. Russell was a man of fine presence and much natural 
dignity. He had great influence over his large body of sometimes turbu- 
lent workmen. His word was a bond, and his_signature was never, in all 



414 BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOP.^.DfA. 

the long years of his business, dishonored by a protest. He always 
looked to the future, and no argument could induce him, for any imme- 
diate profit, to lower the quality of his goods ; nor would he allow prices 
to be varied. These opinions were fortunately concurred in by his part- 
ners, and the result was a wide-spread reputation for quality and fair 
dealing that had a great effect in establishing the American cutlery 
trade. 

Russell, Nathaniel, E., was born in Greenfield, Mass., on March 
26th, 1799, and is the second son of a family of seven of John and Electa 
Russell. Nathaniel received an ordinary education, and at the age of seven- 
teen he engaged himself to a country merchant, with whom he remained 
four years, when he went South, and was active in commerce there for one 
year, he then returned to his native town, engaging in trade for six years, 
and was also interested in a woolen factory for several years. From 1839 
till 1863 he was identified with his brothers in the manufacture of cut- 
Ivery, and during that time, he, in 1844, went to New York, and had 
charge of that department till he sold out his interest to his brothers, since 
which time he has been emploved in no active business. Though he is 
eighty years old, he is still vigorous and active, giving his personal atten- 
tion to his private affairs, while the purity of his character and the frank- 
ness of his disposition have endeared him to a large circle of friends. 

Sawyer, Hon. Edmund H., who died at Easthampton, INIass., 
November 26, 1879, '^^'^^ '''■ '^'^'^'^ of no ordinary power and ability. He 
was born at Newton, in that State, November 16, 1821. His ancestors 
came from England in 1647, and were among the first settlers of Lan- 
caster. His father, Ezra, built the Lancaster mills at Clinton, the Clin- 
ton Company's Mill, the Bigelow Carpet INIill, the Utica, New York, 
State Asylum ; was a member of the Legislature, and in various ways 
prominent in the concerns of his time and region. His mother, Eliza 
Houghton, was a descendant of the early settlers of Lancaster. Edmund 
inherited the intellectual and physical stamina of his ancestr}-. His early 
education was derived from the common schools, and enlarged in the 




^'^■' III/ AU.BitclM-li'^ 



p(u3 



BrOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA. 419 

Derby Academy at Hingham, from which he removed to the store of 
Abraham Holman, of Bolton, in 1836. Leaving that position in 1841, 
he was for some eight years a clerk with Williston & Tyler, of Brattle- 
boro, Vt. This employment introduced him to INIr. Samuel Williston, 
of Easthampton, jNIass., the great manufacturer of buttons, with whom in 
other interests he was associated for many years. When the Nashawannuck 
INIanufacturing Company was organized, in 1850, IMr. Sawyer was chosen 
its treasurer, general agent, and one of its directors ; and retained these 
positions till his death. In the discharge of its many, complicated and 
onerous duties he showed singular business capacity as well as the highest 
and noblest traits of manhood. The corporation flourished, and its pros- 
perity published the peculiar powers of its director and gave him the 
reputation he deserved. This reputation associated him with other con- 
cerns. He was chosen Director of the Rubber Thread and of the Gas 
Companies of Easthampton ; Director, Treasurer and President of the 
Glendale Elastic Fabrics Company, and Treasurer and General Agent of 
the Williston Mills. The last named corporation was rescued from in- 
solvency by Mr. Sawyer in 1871. It had lost for some years $100,000 
annually, from bad management, but in two years was made to pay by 
Mr. Saw'yer's prudent and wise control, antl ]Mr. Williston was rescued 
from financial embarrassment in this way. He testified his appreciation 
of Mr. Sawyer's character by making him the principal resident executor 
of his will when he died in 1874 ; and the wisdom of the selection has 
been justified by the enhanced value of the property. 

Mr. Sawyer was one of the organizers and directors of the First 
National Bank of Easthampton ; President and Trustee of the Savings 
Bank of that town ; Director of the First National Bank of Northampton; 
a Trustee of the State Lunatic Hospital for fourteen years ; of Williston 
Seminary for twelve years, and of Mount Holyoke Seminary for six years. 
He visited Europe on business in 1859 and in 1861. He vigorously 
sustained the Administration during the war of the rebellion — was a 
representative in the Legislature in 1867, and State Senator in 1868-69. 



420 BIOGRAPHICAL ES^CYCLOPMDrA. 

In 1864 he was made a Notary Public, and later a Justice of the Peaee. 
He founded the Public Library Association of Easthampton, and gave 
liberally to its support and secured gifts from others ; led in the improve- 
ment and ornament of the village ; organized societies to beautify the 
cemeteries, and caused the erection of a chapel for the use of the Nasha- 
wannuck village. He was not only a member of the Orthodox Church, 
but for a dozen years one of its deacons, leader of the choir, and super- 
intendent of the Sabbath school. He led in all charitable movements ; 
and during periods of business depression successfully labored to keep 
the mills running, in order to employ the hands. His excellent judgment 
and integrity caused his opinion to be sought from all sides. He advised 
on all subjects, and always honestly and wisely. 

Mr. Sawyer married INIary A. Farnsworth, of Brattleboro, Vt., in 1848, 
and Sarah J. Hinckley, of Norwich, N. Y. , in 1853. He had one son 
by the first marriage, who was connected with him in business at the time 
of his death ; and two sons and a daughter by the second, the eldest of 
whom is a resident physician. His manners were winning, his disposi- 
position was amiable, his tastes were studious and, his intellectual tend- 
ency was philosophical. He was thoroughly methodical and systematic 
in all that he did, and for this reason he was enabled to do much more 
than most men and to do it better. The key-note of his life was piety — 
he was a religious man. His piety was not ostentatious, but marked 
and constant ; though peculiarly modest, he was resolute and forth put- 
ting whenever the cause of religion could be subserved by his action. 
His benevolence was unlimited, but never paraded. And in virtue of 
all these qualities and characteristics he came to be a recognized leader 
in his region and one of the positive forces of the State. 

Mr. Sawyer's health had been for some time somewhat enfeebled, but 
his sudden death, November 26th, 1879, was a shock to the whole com- 
munity. His demise was widely noticed ; Ex-Governor Bullock wrote 
in condolence, testifying his ''profound respect and esteem for his 
amiable qualities and his whole character. *' Senator Dawes testified to 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA. ^^^ 

"a gentleness and tenderness which seem hardly to belong to this 
world." President Billings, of the North Pacific Railroad, said : " How 
can such a good man, so genuine and faithful and true in every relation 
in life, be spared?" Rev. Dr. Seelye, Rev. Mr. Merriam, Rev. Mr. 
Colton and Dr. A. H. Clapp who had known him long and mtimately, 
summed up his character over his coffin as "a Christian gentleman," 
and the whole community attested the truth of the eulogy. They agreed 
that he was equally rare as a man of business, a man of honor, an 
administrator of affairs, a citizen and a Christian, and deserving of the 
highest recognition for all that makes a round and noble character, and 
all who knew the man endorsed the praise. 

Mr. Sawyer's life was opulent in wise deeds, in charities and those 
services which, though immediately personal and directed to personal 
profit, expand to the benefit and instruction of others. His visits to 
Europe enabled him to improve the quality of vulcanized rubber and 
employ it more profitably, so that an industry specially national has 
been rendered more secure. His taste for reading was the origin and 
foundation of a public library whose utility cannot be measured. His 
capacity for financial administration enabled him to expand and securely 
ground mills and factories which are the promoters of industry and 
the active sources of wealth and comfort. His consistent regard for 
religion approved it to many who were influenced by his opinions and 
conduct. His patriotic political record incited others to consider princi- 
ple in partizanship and prefer wisdom to expediency. His service in the 
Legislature contributed to purer and wiser and better laws, and his suc- 
cess in business derived from strict adherence to sound principles, tended 
to render his example the model for thousands. He died too early, per- 
haps, for his own reputation— certainly too soon for the good of his 
friends and the general welfare. But it is the essence of such lives that 
they are not terminated by death. The man whose whole record has 
been wise and upright, and whose whole influence has been aimed at the 
material, mental and moral improvement of his fellows, outlives himself 



422 BIOGRAPHICAL EXCY'CLOF.^.DIA. 

and breaths and acts in all the good inspired by his example. The con- 
senting testimony of all who knew him was that his life had been nobly 
lived, that his influence was always for the right, and that he had gath- 
ered a great harvest of the best fruit, though himself untimely plucked. 
Such a life, then, cannot be said to have terminated. It continues in its 
spirit, and years hence the community and the country will be better 
because Edmund H. Sawyer once lived. 

Schneider, G-eorge, was born in Pirmasens, Rhenish Bavaria, De- 
cember 13th, 1823, his father having been in the civil service of the 
Bavarian Government. He received his education in the Latin school of 
his native city. At the age of twenty he entered the field of journalism, 
for which he had both an inclination and a preparation. After several 
years of active devotion to the work of his profession, writing articles for 
several of the Bavarian newspapers of that period, the revolution of 
Rhenish Bavaria against the tyranny of the Bavarian Government broke 
out, and he joined in that movement with great earnestness, helping to 
organize the Provisional Government, and being appointed its Commis- 
sioner for several districts. He remained in the border region a short 
time ; then, becoming satisfied that any hope of further steps in the at- 
tempted revolution was useless, he made his way through France, and 
sailed for the United States, landing in New York, poor, and a stranger, 
in the middle of July, 1849. I" ^^5° ^^ came to Chicago, where he has 
resided ever since. Here, shortly after his arrival, he commenced the 
publication of the Daily Slaais Zeilung (which had until then been pub- 
lished as a weekly), a paper that is still in existence. 

In 1866 he was elected by the Directors of the State Savings Institu- 
tion as its President. This institution he soon raised to a position that 
caused it to be recognized as at the very head of all the financial establish- 
ments of its kind. 

In 1 87 1 he disposed of his interest in the State Savings Institution, 
and was chosen to the Presidency of the National Bank of Illinois, a 
position which he still holds and fills with great efficiency. It is generally 



BIOGRArniCAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA. 421 

conceded to be one of the most carefully managed and successful banks 
in the city or the country, and it is not saying too much to remark 
that its high standing and its success are due to the excellent judgment, 
prudence and personal popularity of its President. 

Mr, Schneider, ever in sympathy with those of his fellow-countr}-men 
who have come here with an honorable purpose, has always been active 
in his efforts to protect and promote the interests of immigrants. A bill 
inspired by him is now pending in Congress for the protection of immi- 
grants arriving on our shores, and he was for several years President of 
the " German Society for the Protection of Immigrants and the Friend- 
less." 

Mr. Schneider is surrounded by a happy family, including his wife and 
seven children, the oldest of the latter being eighteen, and the youngest 
four. Death deprived him of three other children in their infancy. INIrs. 
Schneider, who previous to her marriage was Miss Matilda Schloetzer, is 
the daughter of Dr. Schloetzer, who was a Government physician in the 
District of Rhenish Bavaria. 

After being absent from his native land, IMr. Schneider, who with his 
compatriots in the revolution of 1849, has long since been pardoned by 
the Bavarian Government, last summer revisited Rhenish Bavaria and 
the scenes of his boyhood. His voyage thither and back was pleasant and 
beneficial, and his visit to the town and district of his birth, which, though 
much changed, still have for him many sacred associations, was highly 

gratifying. 

As a busy man, Mr. Schneider is discerning, eminently conscientious, 
and judiciously cautious, always leaning to the side of conservatism, 
though never unreasonably timid. As a citizen, his sympathies are always 
on the side of good order, progress and improvement ; and in every rela- 
tion and connection of his life, he is, uniformly and without exception, 
'•• variableness or change," a gentleman of honor, loving justice and doing 

right. 

Spencer, A. K., Cashier of the First National Bank of Cleveland, 



428 BIOGRAPHICAI. ENCYCLOPAEDIA. 

Ohio, a position he has held since the birth of the corporation, in 1863, 
when he was elected assistant cashier. The bank was started with a cap- 
ital of $ico,oco. By close attention to those cardinal principles which 
make all business enterprises successful, IMr. Spencer has, by his tact and 
ability, seen the institution of which he is virtually the head so advance 
that now the First National Bank has a capital and surplus of $500,000. 
The first President of the bank was George Worthington, founder of the 
house of George Worthington & Co., who occupied the position until 
his death, in 1871, when Wm, Hewitt was elected to the executive posi- 
tion. His death in 1S72 created a vacancy that was filled by Philo 
Schoville, and was occupied by him until his decease in 1875, when Mr. 
James Barnett was elected President. 

Although INIr. Spencer has been offered the presidency of the First 
National Bank — by the way, the third bank in the United States started 
under the present banking laws — he still pursues his usual routine busi- 
ness habits with the same ardor which characterized him in his early 
years, and his remarkable diligence furnishes a salutary example to the 
young members of his establishment. 

Stevens, Charles A., of Ware, Mass., was born at Andover, Es- 
sex County. Mass.. August 9th, 18 16. Son of Nathaniel Stevens, who 
was one of the earliest woolen manufacturei-s in this country, and was an 
officer in the war of 181 2. His grandfather served in the Revolutionary 
army, and participated in the battle of Bunker Hill, and his great grand- 
father was killed at Lake George, in the French and Indian War. 

He was educated at the Franklin Academy in Andover. 

Removed to Ware in August, 1841. Commenced manufacturing 
woolen goods in company with the late Hon. George H, Gilbert, under 
the firm of Gilbert & Stevens. The firm was dissolved in 1851, Mr. 
Stevens taking the old mill, where he has continued in the same business 
to the present time. 

He was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 
1853, and a member of the Governors Council in 1866 and 1867 ; was 




r 



^•-Z WA/, 



COMLEV BROS. LONDON & MEW YORk 



£V3^J 



L 



(Q-ty-€^n/ K^lAuJZ^/^ 



COMLEY SRO.LONOQM S.N 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA. 433- 

a member of the Forty-third Congress from the Tenth INIassachusetts 
District, filHng the vacancy caused by the death of Hon. Alvah Crocker. 
He has held many town offices and many trusts of a pubhc nature. 

Was married in 184.2 to Maria T\ler, daughter of the late Jonathan 
Tyler, of Lowell, INIass., by whom he has had two sons and one 
daughter. 

Sutton, Eben. There are some men whose characters are so 
nobly planned by nature and so plentifully adorned with those virtues 
which enoble humanity, that it is a duty and a pleasure to write their 
biographies and hand them as memorials to posterity for its benefit and 
instruction. The subject of this sketch was the second son of William 
and Elizabeth Sutton, natives of Ipswich, Mass. He was born Septem- 
ber nth, 1803, in Danvers (now Peabody), Mass, and followed his 
father's business until he reached his twentieth year, when he took charge 
of a woolen mill lately bought by his father, and at whose death he be- 
came the owner. Little by little did he creep onward until he became 
among the largest producers, though not without passing through all the 
vicissitudes and fluctuadons attendant upon such careers. Mr. Sutton's 
interests were not confined to the woolen mills, for we find him with 
large moneyed interests in some of the largest and best known companies 
in JNLissachusetts. He was a stirring, practical man, both in his business 
and private life. He did much, and all honorably, and his friends can 
look back upon his past unsullied career with conscious pride and satisfac- 
tion. Eben Sutton, Esq., liberally dispensed his charities while 
living, and saw and enjoyed the fruits, yet he did all without 
the slightest show or ostentation. At his death, which" oc- 
curred December nth, 1S64, he was President of die Danvers Bank. 
INIr. Sutton's connection widi this bank was co-existent with the 
greater j)ortion of his business life, and hardly less so with the duration of 
the bank itself. He became a Director ten years after the first charter, 
and so remained until 1 851, when, upon the decease of Mr. Shellaber, he 
was chosen President. He had a strong feeling of personal pride in the 
H 



43^ BIOGRATHICAL ENCYCLOP.^DIA. 

success of the institution, arising from the fact that his father was one of 
its founders and its first President, and then all the principles, habits and 
views which went to make up his character as a business man combined 
to give him a deep interest in its welfare, and to lead him to exert all his 
energies to secure its prosperity. He was disinterested and unselfish, for 
he never, at the bank, received the smallest amount of what is commonly 
known as accommodation. But no effort, no expenditure of time or 
labor did he spare. He seemed to give to its concerns a preference over 
his own private affairs, and would, if need were, sacrifice matters of per- 
sonal interest might he thus preserve it from loss or risk. Sagacious, 
judicious, cautious and firm, there have been times when these qualities, 
exercised to a degree which may have seemed almost stern and severe, 
were the means of rescuing the bank from imminent peril, and placing 
it upon foundations of solid and enduring strength. That eminent 
success attended Mr. Sutton's efforts this board and all the stockholders 
of the bank well know, and its present prosperous condition fully attests. 
While our official connection with the deceased naturally leads us to 
dwell upon these services and qualities which were thus peculiarly known 
to us, we cannot refrain from alluding to the traits of character which he 
manifested to all, and in every sphere of his busy life. He had thorough 
integrity, and no man held higher views of what was honest and honor- 
able in business transactions or felt deeper scorn for what he believed to 
be dishonest or mean. He had great forethought and wide compre- 
hension, and yet was singularly prudent and of almost extreme caution. 
His energy was without limit, his will indomitable, and he knew no such 
word as fail. He was ever ready to encourage public and private enter- 
prise, but the cost must first be counted and the groundwork made sure. 
He would lend aid liberally and bestow charity bountifully, but his calm 
judgment must commend the cause and the object be one which he 
knew to be worthy. Apparently impulsive, because the expressions of his 
judgment were so quick and decided that they seemed to be the prompt- 
ings of the moment, he was governed by reasonable convictions and 





"-ly 



.LONO0N*NEW YORK. 



i^ 



BIOGRArniCAL Eh'CYCLOPA'.DIA. 439 

settled principles. In his manners and speech, while abrupt and free, he 
was kind, genial and warm-hearted, and of marked plainness and sim- 
plicity at the time of his death. He was also connected with the S. & D. 
Agri. Corporation, President of the Essex Railroad Company, where, in 
the even and placid tenor of his own way he wielded large affairs with 
great apparent ease and with uniform success. He became early and 
strongly interested in the establishment of the road. He was a Director 
from the first, and always looked upon as a safe and wise counselor. He 
was also President of the Pemberton Company of Boston, where he was 
an active, energetic and faithful officer, cautious and sound in his judg- 
ments, discreet and conciliatory in his policy, and entirely devoted to the 
duties that pertain to the offices of trust and responsibility he so success- 
fully filled. 

Sweatman, "V. C. The subject of this sketch has been in the 
malting business since 1845, and to-day ranks among the largest in his 
branch ot business in Pennsylvania. No man really occupies a more 
enviable position in the community of which he is a member, nor more 
clearly exemplifies the legitimate result of well-directed energy, industry 
and thoroughness of purpose. The house he occupies in malting covers 
an area of 100x140 feet, and is six stories high ; it was originally built by 
Mr. Gaul in 1850. The business and building was purchased by Mr. 
Sweatman in 1863, who, a few years later, enlarged it to a malting capacity 
of 150,000 bushels annually. It is fitted up with the latest and best im- 
proved machinery to facilitate and economize labor, enabling him to sell 
his products at the minimum of profit. To show how well the brewers 
appreciate the quality of his productions, we have only to say he disposes 
of nearly all his malt in the city. 

"Warren, L. L. The subject of this sketch was born August 2d, 
1808, in Worcester County, Massachusetts. The circumstances of his 
early life aided largely to develop the marked traits of his character, self- 
dependence, economy, and exactness, coupled with a deep interest in the 
welfare of the public. 



44° BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOP.EDfA. 

Being familiar from early childhood with die occupadon of his fadier, 
IMajor Eli Warren, he became, in 1832, partner widi him in the manu- 
facture of boots and shoes. Desiring to establish in business for himself", 
he came West in 1835, having married Mary Ann, daughter of Asa 
Wood, and located at Louisville, Ky. Here he established, with his 
father-in-law, a boot and shoe store. Having carried on this business for 
forty-three }'ears, he finds but three or four of the wholesale merchants 
who were in Louisville when he came West remaining. Having made 
steady progress, his establishment now ranks among the first of the shoe 
houses of this city. 

Mr. Warren's financial talent was brought into public use by his being 
placed in the Board of Directors of the Northern Bank of Kentucky. 
Upon the death of its President, John IMilton, he was chosen to fill the 
vacancy. In 1865 a charter was obtained for a new bank, the Falls Cit\-. 
This bank went into operation with a capital of $400,000. H. C. Pindell 
was chosen cashier, and Mr. Warren President, which office the latter now 
holds. 

In 1869 ]Mr. Warren was ai)pointed a Trustee of the Public School of 
Louisville. He served in the board nine years, and has been for several 
years chairman of its financial committee. The condition of the ward 
schools when he came into the board led him to inquire what was neces- 
sar)' to bring them up to a standard that the public had a right to require. 
Being convinced that the great need was of competent teachers, he urged 
the establishment of a Training School for teaching the theory of impart- 
ing instruction and its methods ; and for furnishing an opportunity of 
practical illustration of both. To profit by the experience of other cities, 
Mr. Warren visited Boston, New York, and other places, examining their 
Normal Schools. On returning home, he urged the board to set apart 
the new building in the Fourth Ward for the Training School. With an 
accomplished teacher at its heatl the school gave entire satisfaction. The 
introduction of the graduates of this institution as teachers in the ward 
schools has very much improved the standard of instruction. 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPMDIA. 443 

In connection with the education of youth, INIr. Warren is President 
of the Presbyterian Female School of Louisville ; has been for several 
years a Trustee of Danville Theological Seminary, and also of Centre 
College. To the latter he made a donation of $10,000, and has charge 
of their finances. 

For several years ]\Ir. Warren has been President of the Louis\ille 
Agricultural Works. 

While closely confined with his business, he has not neglected his 
religious duties, but has made his financial talent subservient to the 
interest of the church. Having become a member of Second Presbyterian 
Church, in 1842, he, with sixty others, formed the Chestnut Street Presby- 
terian Church, of which he was elected elder in 1859. For many years he 
acted as their Treasurer. He was also superintendent of its Sabbath school 
for twenty years. During this time he established two branch schools. 
Two churches in the city owe their existence to his liberality — one of one 
hundred and twenty members, the other of forty. To these churches he 
gave property, and assisted in erecting places of worship. His own pas- 
tor, Rev. A. 13. Simpson, feeling the pressure of church growth, urged 
upon his congregation the erection of a new building. Steps were taken 
to that effect, a lot purchased on Broadway, and the name of the church 
changed to Broadway Tabernacle Presbyterian Church. Having visited 
with his pastor a number of the eastern churches. Dr. Talmage's Taber- 
nacle was taken as a model for this building. Towards this enterprise, 
Mr. Warren contributed twelve thousand dollars. 

In a word, he has not hid his Lord's talent in the ground, but has 
gained others besides, and has used them nut merely for his own selfish 
interest, but for the welfare of the public. The confidence placed in him 
by all the institutions with which he was connected bears testimony of 
an unmistakable character to his financial ability. 

He has recently been elected President of the Orphan's Home of 
Louisville. 

"Washburn, "William B., was born in Winchendon, IMass., Jan- 



444 BrOGRAPiriCAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA. 

uary 31, 1820. He graduated at Yale College, 1844, and at once 
engaged in the manufacturing business. He was also identified with 
banking, and was President of the Greenfield Bank. In 1850 he was 
elected to the Senate of the State of Massachusetts, and in 1854 he was a 
member of the Lower House of the State Legislature. In 1862 he was 
elected a Representative from Massachusetts to the Thirty-eighth Con- 
gress ; re-elected to the Thirty-ninth, Fortieth, Forty-first, and Forty- 
second Congresses. In 1871, during his fifth term in Congress, he was 
nominated and elected Governor of Massachusetts, and resigned his posi- 
tion in Congress, to accept the office, January ist, 1872, He was 
nominated and re-elected twice, but during his third term he was, in 
1874, elected by the Legislature of INIassachusetts to fill the vacancy in the 
United States Senate occasioned by the death of Charles Sumner. 

Wilcox, Philo F., late one of Springfield's most wealthy and re- 
spected citizens, was born in Berlin, Conn., June 7, 1805, and was the 
son of Stephen Wilcox, one of those industrious, honest farmers fur which 
that State has been so famous. 

Philo received a very ordinary common school education, and at an 
early age was made familiar with the work of the farm, continuing to help 
his father till his eighteenth year, when thinking that farming did not 
offer the opportunities for advancement that he would like to enjoy, he 
moved to Springfield, and was apprenticed to the trade of tinsmith with 
his brother Phillip, who had been established in that city for some time. 
So well did Philo succeed at his trade, that soon after becoming of age, 
his brother made him a partner with him in his business. After a few 
years, however, he bought of his brother a branch of the business, and 
located on Main street near State. Success crowned his efi'orts, and by 
energy, enterprise and careful management he was enabled, in 1840, to 
retire from mercantile business with a competency. Though, as good 
business men are always in demand, Mr. Wilcox did not long remain 
idle, for we find that he was chosen Director and Vice-President of the 
Chicopee Bank, October 5th, of the same year, which office he held till 
he became_special director, on the death of George Bliss, the President, 




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COMLEY BROS, LONDON&NEW YORK 



BIOGRATHICAL ENCYCLOT^DIA. 449 

in June, 1850. Mr. Wilcox was the special director of the bank till 
October 7, 1851, when he was elected its President, a position he filled 
with marked ability till the time of his death, and though he tendered his 
resignation some years before, on account of failing health, it was not 
accepted. Mr. Wilcox was also a large real estate holder, investing judi- 
ciously, and erected some very fine buildings in "the city,'' where he 
spent most of his life. He also opened several streets, one of which bears 
his name, another the name of his birthplace, both of which will be last- 
ing testimonies. 

In the latter years of his life, Mr. Wilcox was frequently an invalid. 
A man of extraordinary business capacity, indomitable will and energy, 
upright and fair in all his associations and transactions through life. Mr. 
Wilcox stood high in the community as a gentleman, a philanthropist, 
and in every way beyond the imputation of ever designing wrong to any 
(me with whom he transacted business, during the long years of his useful 
life, and he not only obtained position and fortune, but added wealth, char- 
acter and stamina to the city of Springfield. He was taken from this 
" world of woe," January 9th, 1871, and his loss mourned by his family 
and a large circle of friends. 

Mr. Wilcox was married November yth, 1826, to Miss OrphaJ., 
daughter of Asa Wood, of Sommers, Conn., who survives him, and by 
whom he had seven children. One daughter only, Mrs. S. U. Cadwell, of 
New York, survives. 

"Wright, Emerson, was born in Starbridge, Worcester County, 
Mass., March 27, 1815, and is the son of David Wright, a surveyor and 
lumber dealer. Emerson only received an ordinary education from the 
common schools, though he had a finishing course in an academy for 
three terms, a privilege that most boys did not enjoy in his day. At an 
early age he was made acquainted with work, for we find him, when 
about twelve, helping his father on the farm and in the mill. As was the 
custom in those davs, he remained at home till his twenty-first year ; he 
then took his fither's farm, having full charge of it till 1S46, when he 
thought he would make a start in the world for himself. He went to 



45° BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

West Springfield and bought a grist mill, which he sold out in 1847, 
removing to Springfield. From that time he had contracts for furnishing 
wood to the many railroads in the vicinity of Springfield, among which 
were the Boston & Albany, Connecticut River, Vermont Valley, New 
London & Palmer, Long Island, New York & New Haven, New Haven, 
Hartford & Springfield, New Haven & Northampton, and some others. 
In 1853 Mr. Wright met with a \txv painful and serious accident by 
which he lost both his limbs, which had to be amputated below the knee. 
The accident was the result of being run over by a passenger train. This 
would have been the means of discouraging any man of less determina- 
tion of purpose. But as soon as Mr. Wright had sufficiently recovered, 
we again find him faithfully at his post. Mr. Wright's interests have for 
many years been with Springfield, and in 1864 we find him engaged in 
the erection of business blocks, at which he did more or less till 1875. 
In that year, in the great fire, he lost one of his blocks, and in 1876 two 
more, which entailed a heavy personal loss, notwithstanding which they 
have all been replaced. 

The appreciation of the worth of ]\Ir. Wright by the public has been 
shown in many ways, for we find he was, in 1869, elected to the Legisla- 
ture and re-elected in 1870, in 1872 and 1873 was elected alderman, 
and in the Fall of 1874 was chosen by the people to preside over them as 
Mayor of the city, which office he has since and still holds. It is un- 
necessary to say the people are more than satisfied with the ability and 
impartiality with which he attends to every detail of his office which is for 
their interest, and we know there have been many important reforms. 

By an industry that has never wavered, by an integrity that is unim- 
peached, JNIr. Wright has gained position, wealth, and the esteem of all 
citizens, and though his life has been a quiet one, he owes his progress and 
success entirely to his own exertions and energy, and he is truly known 
as a self-made man. 

Mr. Wright was first married to INIargaret B. Gleason, of Warren, 
Mas.s. , who died in 1858. Second time married to Lizzie N. Lewis, of 
Walpole, Mass., in 1862, by whom he has had one daughter. 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA. 4SS 



HOTELS. 



Burbank House, the leading hotel of this village, was built in 
1870 by the oldest and most prominent builder of the place, Mr. A. 
Burbank, and was opened to the public by him in 1871. The house, 
opposite the depot, is fitted up in the most approved style, and 
has all modern improvements; the rooms are heated by steam and 
are supplied with running water. The table groans with all the delicacies 
of the season, and the hotel taken as a whole can not fail to meet with 
the approbation of the most fastidious. We cheerfully recommend it to 
the readers of this work. 

Holyoke House.— Nothing has been more fully identified with 
the growth and advancement of this flourishing city than the present 
Holyoke House, which was built in 1848 by Ross & Dillon at a cost of 
more than $100,000. The house has always been well kept, has offered 
inducements to those thinking of engaging in manufacturing, second 
only to "the natural resources." In 1864 the property was bought by 
the Parsons Paper Company, and in 1869 was leased to the present pro- 
prietor, E. M. Belden, who has done everything in his power to make it 
homelike and comfortable to the traveling public. And though the 
house is not at the present time finished in the most modern style of the 
hotels built at a later day, we can safely say that the owners will this 
year give it a thorough overhauling, and will not let expense deter them 
from making it equal to any in the State. It is a fine four story and a half 
brick building, and is the main feature of Depot Square, the Post-Office 
being in the rotunda. The rooms are large, light and airy, and the table 
would not fail to meet with the approbation of the most fastidious. It is 
in every respect first-class. We cheerfully recommend it to the readers of 
this work. 
IS 



456 BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA. 

Mansion House, Greenfield.— The site on which stands the 
present Mansion House has for many years served a similar purpose. 
The present building was erected many years ago, and since then has 
always been known as the " IMansion House."' In 1855, the property 
was bought by H. W. Clapp, Esq., who, after thoroughly renovating, 
leased it to J. M. Decker, formerly of Lawrence, Mass., and who kept it 
only a short time, when it was leased by H. B. Stevens & Son, who re- 
mained its proprietors for fifteen years. At this time, or about 1871, the 
property was bought by Geo. Doolittle, who enlarged the house to its 
present .size, and continued its proprietor till 1875, when the property 
was bought by Mr. Peleg Adams, a farmer, and leased by him to the 
present proprietor, G. T. C. Holden, Esq., who is also the proprietor of 
the Farren House of Turner's Falls. 

The present Mansion House may be thus truthfully and impartially 
described : it has a frontage of 160 by 100 feet on Main and Federal 
streets ; is four stories high, of brick ; containing all modern improve- 
ments known to the hotel world ; is heated by steam throughout, and 
has most excellent high, light, and aiiy rooms, most exquisitely furnished, 
which are equalled by few houses in the State. 

Everything is so ordered and arranged that an air of pleasantry and 
comfort pervades in all parts of the house. Cleanliness is also one of the 
noticeable features, and the most fastidious could not help being more 
than satisfied. 

There is only one thing more comforting to a hungry man than the 
anticipation of a good meal, and that is the full realization of sitting down 
to a table filled with all the luxurious edibles of the season before him, 
and the satisfaction of all guests of the above house is fully marked on 
their features on making their exit from the dining room. • 

It can be plainly seen that the above comforts have been the result of 
experience and well-directed labor on the part of the gentlemanl}- and 
courteous proprietor, and the efficiency of those in his employ. We 
know of no hotel in this State that we can more conscientiously and 



n 



BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA. 461 

cheerfully recommend to the readers of this work than the Mansion 
House at Greenfield. 

Massasoit House.— No hotel has been more fully identified with 
the history of the State of Massachusetts, and none in the country has 
gained a more enviable national and foreign reputation than the Massasoit 
House of Springfield. The original house was built by Messrs. M. and E. 
S. Chapin, in 1842, having a frontage of 60 feet on ]Main, by 80 on Rail- 
road streets, was opened to the public by them June 2Sth, 1842, and by 
reference to the old books we find the first name registered was that of 
Moses Mann, Esq., of Boston. 

From the day of opening, ihe hotel experienced a liberal patronage, 
which had increased to such an extent by 1845, that it was found neces- 
sary to make an addition by erecting a w^ooden structure fronting 90 feet 
on Main Street. Finding, in 1847, that the room was still inadequate 
to meet the demands of the public, another addition was made, being a 
four-story brick wing 40 feet on Railroad street, and extending back 100 
feet. At the same time was built and fitted up the kitchen ; which, to- 
gether with the laundry, ice-house, and engineer room (added two 
years later), aie entirely separate from the hotel proper. 

In 1858 the frame building which was added in 1845 was removed to 
give place to the magnificent brick structure which now occupies the 
ground, and which forms such a prominent feature of the present hotel. 

During the past thirty-five years the house has entertained most of 
America's prominent authors, poets and statesmen. Such men as Daniel 
Webster and Herr Kossuth and many others, have made speeches from the 
balcony in front of the house. Jenny Lind has been a guest of the house 
for weeks together. Many foreign dignitaries and officials have been en- 
tertained, and even Dukes and Princes have been the guests of this well 
known hostelry. 

There are very few cases in the history of our country where a hotel 
has been under one management for so long a period as the " INIassasoit 
House ' of Springfield has been under the management of M. and E. S. 



462 BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAiDIA. 

Chapin. And there are none in the country to-day that have a fairer 
record or higher reputation at home or abroad. 

The hotel contains 150 rooms, and has ample accommodations for 
200 guests. The rooms are large, light, and airy, and modern improve- 
ments are found in all parts of the house. 

As the above is only intended as a historical sketch, and to eulogize 
on all the good qualities of "this house," would only be recapitulation. 
And as those who have been its guests have never been known to say 
aught against it ; and every one who names it, does so in praise ; we will 
leave the readers to form thfeir own opinion, till such a time as they find 
it convenient to judge for themselves, when they will undoubtedly be of 
the same opinion as the author, that "The ^Nlassasoit House has no 
superior in the countiy. " 

"Wilson House, North Adams. — The leading hotel of this flour- 
ishing manufacturing village was built in 1866 by IVIr. A. B. Wilson 
(the inventor of the Wheeler & Wilson sewing machine), at a cost of 
$140,000, and was opened to the public by him in 1867. At the end of 
one year it was leased by the " INIanufacturers' x^ssociation," and re-leased 
by them to A. E. Richmond, of the old Berkshire House, who soon 
after re-leased it to Messrs. E. Rogers and H. M. Streator, who kept it 
till the close of the " Association's '" five years' lease. The property was 
then bought by John F. Arnold for $90,000. and after many improve- 
ments had been made, was leased to Streator, Smith & Co., they keep- 
ing it about two and a half years, and during the time they were its pro- 
prietors, the property passed into the hands of the North Adams Bank, 
who are the present owners. In 1877, Mr. F. E. Swift became the sole 
proprietor, and has remained such till the present time, though the 
management of the house since INIay ist, 1876, has been left entirely in 
the hands of Mr. S. C. Fleming, who has done everything to make it 
homelike and pleasant to the traveling public. The house is first cla? 
in all its appointments, and we cheerlully recommend it to all. 



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